Tryst
Reviews
Mark Fisher, Scotland on Sunday
classic Grid Iron. . . when fact and fiction blur. . . Becky Minto’s beautiful wave installation of glittering rocks hangs from the wooden beams in the boatyard. . . Drawing on watery writing by Oscar Wilde, William Golding and Alexander Trocchi, Harrison’s script for Tryst splashes against the boat yard like the tide itself.
Neil Cooper, The Herald
a grimly sensuous melange that looks somewhere between Las von Trier and The Brothers Grimm, where mermaids resemble 1930s flappers and waves flow like jewels. . . beautiful images. . . a serious voyage into some very dark waters.
Joyce McMillan, The Scotsman
Tryst is a thrilling visual and sensual experience, from the moment the boat pulls up to the magically lit island jetty. Becky Minto’s design and Paul Claydon’s lighting are often breathtaking, transforming the tiny island into a magical landscape of marine and domestic imagery – four great white sails soaring into the darkness here, a lit window there – and making brilliant use both of the gleaming shapes of the boats under construction, and of the beams, ladders and long attics of the workshop building. Conrad Ivitsky Molleson’s music and sound is eloquent and beautiful; the rich smell of wood, varnish and sea-water unforgettable. And at the core of the show, there is a beautiful, complex performance from Kjersti Botn Sandal as Lyra, the raging bereaved mother; with strong, hard-working support from Iain Parker as her husband, and David Ireland and Nicola Harrison as their friends Otto and Iona, lovers, rivals, and – sometimes – their most hated enemies.
Robert Dawson Scott, The Times
At their best, as here, Grid Iron’s use of real settings turns the theatrical mainstay of suspension of disbelief on its head. Surrounded by piles of chandlery and half-finished boats, the resiny tang of fresh-cut timber in your nostrils and the lapping of water around the rocky foreshore in your ears, you can hardly help believe. As it is, with atmospheric sounds played live by Conrad Ivitsky Molleson, this is an evocative meditation on our ongoing tryst with the waters that surround us.