On a bare stage, in a haze of smoke, three spooky figures in black stand touching up latex masks with aged features. Three young people enter and take the masks from them. Fade to an old man shuffling and groaning. He's holding a bunch of flowers. A young man then enters and tries to help him but is held in the tight grasp of the old man. Then the largely silent action shifts to a home for the elderly where the three young people are now residing (and wearing those grotesque masks).
From that startling and Kafkaesque beginning, the Matthew Lenton-conceived and -directed play, Tomorrow investigates the essence of mortality—not just what it's like to be human but to find yourself turning without warning or reason into a doddering old geezer.
Produced by Vanishing Point, a British Theatre company which specializes in creating "abstract metaphorical scenarios . . . which will marry form and content in a distinctive way," Tomorrow is exactly the kind of play one hopes to see at a Fringe Festival: bold, challenging, unconventional. The piece also benefits from Vanishing Point's communal stagecraft. Not only does the company help create a text through improvisation and experimentation, it also contributes to the sound, lighting and music design, making for a consistently high level of artistry.
The mysterious things that happen in Tomorrow are not only well thought out but deeply felt and profound.
