NON HUMAN ANIMAL is a raw, gritty, one-woman play written, produced, directed, and teched by award-winning playwright Kat Woods, who returns to the Edinburgh Fringe for the sixth year running. Embracing silence, the performance steers you away from the traditional Fringe glamour and forces you to sink your teeth into a story that interrogates our medical institutions, systems of power, treading the blurred lines between grief, trauma, pity, and forgiveness.
In 60 minutes, the performance unpacks the tumult of Róisín, who sits in the trauma of her father’s murder, a tale partly inspired by Woods’ own experience. The show heavily leaned into uncovering the dark, grimy underbelly of grief with intricacy, humanising the feeling of desolation behind shadows. Emily Tracey is a defining outlet for the story being told, becoming our lighthouse throughout the performance despite her character engulfed in an unshakable darkness; at no point was the audience not transported and invested in the tragedy of the performance. There is a brilliantly executed balance of dark humour as the mode to accompany the show’s poignantly devastating and difficult subject, though it was much appreciated that Woods’ writing accentuated its tragic aspects, and was unafraid to define the uncomfortable, and let it settle in the air.
Our protagonist is unbearably human, relatably doom-scrolling on reels with Olivia Rodrigo’s ‘The Cure’ trickling softly in the background, mini Mars Bars stocked up in a mouse-like grey robe, stuffing her face and simultaneously consuming Gilmore Girls until sunrise—and it is these human facets that allow for her experience to translate appropriately for the audience’s consumption. This relatability became the soul of the performance, adequately unmasking the double sided coin of restorative justice. The subject was a giant, non-human animal of itself to tackle, yet Woods approached such themes with candour and pressing vulnerability, making an apt achievement that is cuttingly politically infused, respectful in all capacities, bravely tender with cathartic grandeur.
Tracey’s performance dangles tension for the audience like a rubber band about to snap — and we are all wholly immersed and eager, awaiting the truth to be shoved down our own throats until we are full from the performance and emerge from the room with gratitude. A bleak but transcendently sharp, award-worthy show deserving of your attention this Fringe.
NON HUMAN ANIMAL is running until 31 August at Billiard Room at Gilded Balloon Teviot. Buy tickets here.
Image provided by Non-Human Animal Press Release.
