Tracks of the Winter Bear, Traverse

Two acts, two authors, two very different playlets, but with common themes and references.

Act 1 tells the story of a doomed relationship in reverse.  Shula is trying to shake off the ghost of her lover, and her story winds back through significant moments in their relationship.  Along the way she receives well meant advice from strangers, who never quite hit the mark with their words, but emphasise how hard it is to communicate with someone whose reason for communicating has gone.

There are some great one liners, and several Edinburgh in-jokes, but the focus is always on Deborah Arnott's Shula, a study in pain and grief and the tragedy of being an outsider, but who lights up when the love of her life is realised, and is still able to find a form of hope and a road back from despair.

From the very real life of the opener, the second act moves into a playful, allegorical fantasy.  In a Highland winter theme park Jackie, a disenchanted Mother Christmas, becomes entwined with an escaped polar bear.  A bear that can talk in both it's own voice, and that of the people it has eaten.  A bear that craves love, with a woman who has turned her back on it.

Together they go on a journey, back to Jackie's home in Abbeyhill, and face up to their own fears.  When they part there is, as in Act 1, enough hope in the air for them to find their own ways in recognising their own needs.  The humour is dark, often hilarious, and the script moves at a goodly pace.  Kathryn Howden is a wonderfully world weary Jackie, full of wisecracks and cynicism.  But it's Caroline Deyga's Bear that's the star turn of the night.  Worried, worrying, companionable, terrifying, an echo chamber of human fears and heartaches, she is a powerful presence on stage.

An unusual stage at that, with audience lined up on two sides of the raised and rolling platform, yet another aspect of the duality that runs through the performance.

Both acts have strongly distinctive identities, but both feature love lost, love missed, love unclaimed.  Love accepted, enjoyed, powerful.  And polar bears.

A heartwarming way to pass a winter evening.