Presented by Box Tale Soup

Review by Hunter King

Belly Laugh at Underbelly, Cowgate

Fringe regulars Box Tale Soup have returned, this year to the Pleasance Queen Dome with their offering A Ghost Among the Living. The dynamic duo of Box Tale Soup, Noel Byrne and Antonia Christophers share the stage once again in an entirely new adaptation of several of Edgar Allen Poe’s greatest works.

For those who have had the pleasure of experiencing a Box Tale Soup production, their classic signature remains in tact as they have once again adapted a classic (or in this case several classic) piece(s) of literature using puppetry, props, set, and costumes all made from sustainable and recycled materials.

Byrne takes center stage for this one as “The Scholar,” a well educated man in the matters of Edgar Allen Poe who has taken time away from the stories as they tend to become too real for him, blending the boundaries between story and reality. Byrne is a natural showman and storyteller. He constantly toes the line between mystery and trust, between sane and insane, between good and evil. His voice rings with a bravado that demands the attention of the room and leaves them hooked until his story ends.

Christophers plays a more ethereal force as “The Other.” From her first entrance the audience knows that she is the ruler of mischief in this show and is not to be trusted. She glides through the stage with a lightness on her feet and a darkness deep behind her eyes.

Byrne and Christophers worked with Mark Collier, who also serves as the director of the production, to pen the new adaptation, which expertly weaves through classic stories such as “The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Cask of Amontillado”, inevitably ending with a powerful rendition of “The Masque of the Red Death.” Connecting each of the stories builds a sense of tension as the scholar grows ever closer to his own insanity and is haunted ever more by the other who looms through doorways and windows. Each story also utilizes different puppetry techniques, distinctly separating each story as an artifact in the mind of the scholar. Their inevitable blending is proof that his own mind can’t hold these stories back any more, blending both the narratives of Poe’s stories, and the chaos within the mind of the scholar.

The show meets the quality standard that Box Tale Soup repeatedly delivers, and will leave you feeling properly uneasy. Their return to form with another macabre story has served them well, and by no surprise they deliver it with tact, intrigue, and sustainable spectacle.

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