The Mosinee Project at Underbelly Cowgate – Edinburgh Fringe review

“Everything is a bit f**ked right now.” In terms of opening lines, it’s certainly a provoking one.

In the 1950s, the midwestern town of Mosinee did something unusual – it staged a fake communist coup. Roads were barricaded, houses were raided and fake propaganda was disseminated. The reds under the bed arrived for a sleepover – best to go into the Cold War hot, they argued.

According to emerging company Counterfactual, who picked up a coveted Untapped Award for emerging artists, this incident can go a long way to explaining why everything is that slight bit “f**ked”.

The company have certainly played a blinder with their choice of subject matter. The experiment in Mosinee, where a whole town buys into a single collective experience and simulates their own societal collapse, is succulent material: performers performing players in a mass performance. The metatheatrical depths are there to be plunged. Technical wizardry also brings the Mosinee project to life: Counterfactual deploy soundscapes, live video, microphones and solid lighting design choices: a potent combination for some solid theatrical storytelling: every tool in the box of tricks is in action here.

The chief problem for the show is that the company state from the outset that they intend to shed some light on the state of the US nation: untangle some sort of riddle through a particular case study. By placing so much emphasis on a select group of individuals, former Communist sympathisers now roped in to oversee the project, we lose sight of that wider relevance of the tale. The see-saw leans too far into personal tragedy over potent discovery.

Which would be fine if the characters felt multi-dimensional, but they often come and go like flotsam – dropped when no longer relevant. This is a show that certainly walks the walk and talks the talk – but never seems to either ask or answer the right questions.