Review: Piskie, Fringe 2024

A little bit wonderful, a little bit weird, and a little bit freaky, Piskie is a great example of the sort of clever artistic performances you can find at the Festival.

Inviting a friend to see Dr. Ouida Burt present her findings on the relationship between sleep and the supernatural is fun, naughty, and memorable. Let them believe it’s a regular lecture, and don’t tell them it’s a play. You might get punched in the arm, but it might be worth it.

Written and performed by Lucy Roslyn, Piskie is named after pixies, fairies and other British folklore encounters. James Stewart’s 1950s pooka, Harvey the Rabbit, features throughout.

In the lecture, Dr Ouida Burt explains that in the movie, only Elwood can see Harvey and uses it as an example of fantasy versus reality before promising to take the audience through three case files she’s walking on. We have examples of people who do not believe in the supernatural and yet who are sure they’ve encountered something paranormal.

Tone

Piskies may come in two forms. The first is a lecture given to an audience with the lecturer making an effort to be engaging.

I’ll raise my hand and admit that I’d like to see that lecture. I’m pro-science but admit we don’t yet have all the answers. What Dr Ouida Burt was offering to help us explore is how science and understanding the human mind and mindset are getting closer to understanding more of people’s weird experiences.

The second Piskie is a weird experience. Dr Ouida Burt is under more pressure than she can comfortably endure. Things start to happen. 

Are you safe in the audience? Perhaps you’re more than a spectator. Is there something in the curtains? 

Okay, you shouldn’t bring someone along under false pretenses but it’s an excellent show to spark conversation.

What to expect

A Summerhall lecture theatre is an excellent venue for this lecture. 

Dr Ouida Burt makes an effort to engage the audience and set the tone by sharing a spooky story using the traditional lights-off and flashlight-illuminating face method.

When the lights go back on, we’re given a little bit of a slide show and a light, consumer-friendly introduction to sleep psychology. Honestly, it’s interesting.

The narrative arc of the performance slowly takes over. Psychosis is all about seeing or hearing things that aren’t there or believing things that aren’t true. We know this because Dr Burt just told us. But what if it becomes increasingly evident that Dr Burt might be suffering from some sort of psychosis herself?

And what did happen to her father?

Overall?

Lucy Roslyn’s myriad of emotions was powerful to behold. We move from lecturer to young girl, from joy to despair, fear and hope, and all of these are written clearly in facial expressions.

Perhaps I couldn’t get into the nuisances, but I didn’t quite get the reoccurring sing-song/folk song. If this had been a TV series, then the little ditty could have been used as a score/prelude to something creepy or, conversely, the opposite and the return to hope, but it didn’t seem necessary here.

Piskie is an hour long but could have been squeezed into 50 minutes. That’s not much padding, but dropping one or two sentences from some exchanges would have created a different, sharper, perhaps darker experience. Maybe I’m being cold and unemotional? Again.

Piskie is a piece of powerful theatre, pleasantly spooky, and I enjoyed it.