Supposing: at Traverse Theatre – Edinburgh Fringe review

There is a subtle, slow-burning power to the word premiere of Zinnie Harris’s Supposing: at the Traverse Theatre. Directed by Harris herself, this new production takes a magical realism premise – a woman falling down a hole and suddenly being able to tell the future, but no one believes her – and anchors it firmly in the mess of present-day politics.

Modern-day Cassandra Sally, played for the most part with brilliant precision by Nicole Cooper, is our guide through this surreal nightmare. “I’m a rational person, I used to be a manager for f**k’s sake,” she exclaims – the three words “used to be” turning the sentence on its head. The freak accident of falling into a pit is treated with an amusing touch, but the play quickly builds into a subtle, probing investigation into what truth actually means in a post-truth age.

Alisa Kalyanova’s set and costume design brings a threadbare, stark aesthetic to the stage. Centred on a single white circle and a small, inconsequential lamp, the design lets simple, subtle details do heavy emotional lifting. Sally and her husband Rich (played with grounded nuance by Richard Conlan) sit on mismatched chairs, and a very consequential loaf of bread carries a prominent reduced sticker.

Harris isn’t afraid to embrace the theatrical, introducing the conceit that Sally has a Greek chorus inside her head – leading to a wild, sudden dance break delivered in Ancient Greek. It also dives into weightier themes: the rise of the far right, Reform, the treatment of immigrants in detention centres, and the murder of a trans girl.

Yet, the play is most succulent when it turns inward to explore the unspoken truths, non-truths, and the wilful, deliberate choices to avoid the truth within a relationship. Rich’s dismissive tone and verbal undermining of Sally’s sense of knowing is normalised to the point where even the audience gets caught in the sense of un-knowing.

There’s something wilfully elusive, almost deceptive about the show. In a blistering, incisive moment, Sally asks what if a man had been given this gift, exposing how her status as a woman turns foresight into a curse.