Review: Covenant, Fringe 2024

Covenant makes you feel rotten at yourself and others while appreciating them. It’s a darkly clever state of affairs.

The play begins with audio clips that sketch out a dystopian world where abortion is illegal and punished severely. 

The young woman in front of us is puking into a bucket. She had my sympathy. Morning sickness, right? 

With hangover cures in hand, friends find her, and we discover that we’ve been watching the aftermath of a party. She’s not pregnant after all; she drank way too much and has lost a chunk of memory. Our fallen angel immediately annoys me by needing to be the centre of attention. My sympathies shift to her two friends.

As the play unpacks, the tension increases and is already at a high bar. There’s clearly an unspoken (good acting) disagreement between the two friends who appear to be hiding something. What did happen at that party? What has been forgotten?

One friend, the last to arrive, seems incredibly stressed while pushing an “I know better” vibe into some of her comments. My sympathy moves to the second friend who got there first. Oh, wait, friend three is an A&E nurse, and this other friend is getting a bit toxic in her efforts to get the medic to back off. My sympathy switches again as the nurse must be bold to accomplish anything.

There’s a fourth friend who’s not here, who is serving a jail sentence for having an abortion. Oh, wait, was her boyfriend at the party?

I’m feeling rotten at myself for being such a judgy bloke. It’s clearly a complex situation, and the friends are trying their best. I’m the last idiot who gets to sit here and work out who’s right and who to back.

It should have been more apparent to me from the start that the real problem, the true villain of the play, is a dick that’s not in this room.

Tone

I’ve already used the word “tense.” Covenant is also emotional, and it can be rather traumatic at times—things are thrown.  

Covenant is, without a doubt, an adult play that needs to be seen by youngsters. It’s rated 16+, but it feels appropriate for folk a few years younger than that.

Covenant is up close and personal. I watched it at Fern in Greenside. It was sold out, and I had a front-row corner seat, which put me almost nose-to-nose with the actors at times. She grabbed a seat, put it in front of me, and looked straight ahead. 

Through all this, there are moments of grace as well, with some fluid body movements as the scenes change or flashbacks are invoked.

What to expect

Expect an intense experience that works best in a tightly packed, small theatre.

Covenant is a play about how cruel society can be, women’s rights, individual responsibility and friendship.

Covenant made me feel bad about my own judgy self, but I went from thinking, “These people are subtly toxic, and you need them out of your life,” to “You’d be lost without them.”  The “you” in that sentence also changed focus, moving to and fro among the three young women.

There are some light effects and some audio. I note there’s a strobe lighting warning on Covenant, and I’m sorry if that rules you out. Otherwise, I found the sound and light absolutely perfectly pitched—powerful without being overpowering.

Overall

Fantastic acting and skilful writing combine to create this powerful exploration of how women have to make dangerous decisions all the time. There’s little protection from the consequences, right or wrong, of those decisions, and sometimes, the only armour you have is the good intentions of friends. Sometimes, you are your own enemy.

I watched the last ever Covenant run at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, but if you get the chance to see it elsewhere, take it, and … don’t forget.