Alma Mater

Fairytales are uncanny – that much Freud taught us – but Glasgow’s Fish and Game have found a whole new way of sending us down the rabbit-hole with the haunting Alma Mater. Listed as theatre and billed as a “filmic journey for one”, this unique 20-minute experience feels more like an art installation, as, armed only with an iPad, you are ushered into a white cube space fitted out with just a bed, stool and paneless window.

However, this same room duplicated on your screen soon becomes populated with a family whose story unfolds in an increasingly dream-like sequence. Fairytale motifs recur – caged bird, gingerbread man and forest – and the characters repeatedly look you in the eye, with a mixture of invitation, accusation and threat.

As theatre, Alma Mater lacks a live element: the true narrative exists not in the room or even on the screen but in the space in between – your mind. As in reading a book, Fish and Game ask you to fill in the gaps and in their hands (not to mention yours), technology isn’t the enemy of creativity, just a new tool. I’m excited to see what they make with it next.

– Nancy Groves