Going Viral (Summerhall, Edinburgh)

On a flight from Kampala, the capital of Uganda, to London, a planeload of passengers burst into tears one by one. In-flight images quickly spread on social media, but what seemed at first like a freak occurrence turns out to be something much more: the beginning of a crying contagion. Within days, Britain is awash with tears. By the end of the week, the whole world is weeping.

Daniel Bye‘s latest storytelling piece hits a rich metaphorical seam. He follows two individuals: the young man whose private grief triggers this epidemic of emotion and the Indian immigrant doctor trying to halt its progress, begging Whitehall officials to intervene before its too late. Between segments, Bye explains how viruses multiply, mutate and spread.

It’s a parable that holds a lot – perhaps too much. Our suspicion of emotions rubs up against the importance of empathy, almost to the point of contradiction, and the story says as much about groupthink as it does about isolationism. Telling too, that the richest are the first to shut themselves away, while developing countries succumb most fully. At base, though, we’re all equally human; all vulnerable to the same viruses.

With a magic realism that can’t help but delight – just as Bye’s natural Northern affability can’t help but charm – there’s a lot to like about Going Viral. At its core, is something very real and very raw: Bye’s own genuine grief – though it’s never given undue privilege, positioned instead as part of the sum total of global suffering.

Sometimes, Bye’s story is so resonant it slips into vagueness, a soup of swirling ideas and images that never fully nails its colours to the masts. As such, it peters out to finish and it feels stronger as a piece of thinking than a piece of theatre.

Does it even need to be in a theatre? On one level, as a story, not really. Bye tries to induce tears – chopping onions, chomping on a chilli, even inviting an audience member to pluck his arm hairs – but otherwise there’s little that needs a stage per se.

However, it’s a piece that wants to bring us together in a single room at a certain time. There’s defiance in that, given the risk of catching some bug or other, and poetry too. After all, theatre’s powered by emotional contagion: shared experiences in a shared space.

Going Viral runs at Summerhall, Edinburgh from 7 to 30 August (not 12, 19, 26).