Mystery starts from the very beginning when the audience is invited to sit in a circled room with sixteen chairs and plunged into complete darkness for a few long seconds. Then slowly appear dots of lights across the room, followed by the silhouette of Iris Brunette: the story teller, the watcher, the watched, the real, the ghost, the central woman of this performance played by a graceful Melanie Wilson. Iris Brunette is a fragile and atmospheric journey into a post-apocalyptic cityscape, inspired by Chris Marker’s 1962 black-and-white film La Jetée. More than the story, the whole play is built around the atmosphere which is set by Wilson herself but partly depends on the audience. Within a subtle light play and soundscape, every single member of the audience is part of a story Iris Brunette is about to tell, invent or remember: one is a sea captain, one other embodies apprentices at the monastery, one is a cartographer, one other is a bartender, … and there is the man, which Wilson casts members of the audience to play in turns. When one thinks he or she has been cast to be an agnostic, they are suddenly faced with a choice to interact or not with Iris Brunette as the man she is constantly in search of. The light, the sound, the poetic text, Wilson’s soft voice and slow but precise movements altogether create a very intimate and powerful experience for the audience which can only but be engaged, whether in silence or under the spotlight. Melanie Wilson opens up many doors, it is up to us to go through them and look deeper into it.Melanie Wilson, Writer, performer and sound designer
Ben Pacey, Lighting design
Peter Arnold, Design
Rachel Bowen, Production manager
Produced by Fuel
Until 30 August at 18:00 and 21:00, University of Edinburgh Medical School.
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