The Dead Memory House

Possibly the only show to arrive in Edinburgh in a removal van, Theatre Corsair’s The Dead Memory House makes great use of Summerhall’s potential for site-specific shows by transforming some old offices into a convincing replica of a residential flat. Full of assorted furniture, lamps, books and bric-a-brac, it could be your own shared digs from your student days.

It’s the setting for a unique and absorbing devised walk-around piece, where the audience become guests, of a fashion, at a dysfunctional dinner party hosted by the three very different female inhabitants of the home. Tension brews and no one seems to be having quite the same conversation.

Bea is a broody graduate type. Silvia is square and motherly. Anne wears a low-cut dress, flirts with the guys and drinks too much wine. They backbite, but seem to care for each other too. Like much else, the exact nature of their relationships (friends? Family? Lovers?) is left for you to decide.

The sense of this being an individual experience is heightened when we’re encouraged to write down on slips of paper our recollections of the last time we stayed out all night. They’re jumbled together in a jar and later read out at random, as if perfectly natural parts of the script.

It’s not exactly clear what we’re meant to take from the experience, but the performances and pin-drop atmosphere are hard to fault, and there’s definitely something spooky and mournful about this play that stays with you long after the party dies.