Edinburgh review: Frogman (Codebase)

Shows with lots of tech are all over the Fringe this year. Curious Directive’s latest show may well be one of the highest of high-tech pieces, delving, as it does, into the world of virtual reality.

In Frogman, the audience sits in the round looking onto a long, narrow stage, with headphones and a VR headset attached to each chair. The action alternates between real-life – in sections performed by Tessa Parr – and virtual reality replay. We are instructed to put the headset on and take it off at regular intervals.

The piece is framed by the idea that we’re the jury. We are being shown video evidence through our headsets and witnessing the actual interview of Meera. She has been caught up in the reopening of an old case: the disappearance of a 13 year-old girl, Ashley, when Meera was 11. Slowly the story unfolds, revealing a narrative about the young Meera and her friends, who spend one summer growing up in her bedroom, sharing stories and creating clubs. When the school bully Ashley befriends Meera out of the blue, they become very close. But, we learn, Meera has been keeping secrets in relation to Ashley’s disappearance and eventually we find out why.

Parr plays the adult Meera with great poise, performing alone onstage in sections where she is being interviewed by a policewoman – someone we can only hear. The VR sections are recordings of what Meera and her friends were up to that summer, as well as some footage of Meera’s dad – a police diver – searching for the body of Ashley in the coral. With the headset on, you can move your head and see Meera’s entire bedroom in 3D. It’s blurry, as if we’re watching an old '80s videotape, but seeing the entire room – basically the room where these kids are journeying into adulthood – is a really interesting experience. The underwater sections – where we float like a diver above the sea bed – are also beautiful.

But though it brings some nice moments to Frogman, in reality, the tech is used as a fairly simple way of extending the storytelling. The VR sections are a little like watching a film, except slightly harder on the eyes. The framing of us as jury also feels a little contrived: it’s a way of strong-arming the technology into the narrative.

Still, the story itself is compelling: a lovely, well-told coming-of-age tale about mistakes, hatred, small-town life and who your real friends are.

Frogman runs at the Traverse Theatre (Codebase) until 27 August and then tours the UK.

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