Pleasance Dome
Theatre
1-13, 15-20, 22-27 Aug, 5:25pm-6:40pm

It’s a simple, sad story, but it’s joyfully told.  So said FringeGuru’s Carmel Doohan, reviewing Translunar Paradise on its Edinburgh run last year.  As an ageing man struggles to confront his life-partner’s death, he escapes to a personal paradise of cherished memories – where his departed wife, in one final act of love, teaches him how to let go.

There are no spoken words in this highly-physical piece; two masked actors dance and mime their roles, to the strains of a haunting ballad and the whistle of an accordion.  Tiny gestures convey a lifetime of love, while mimed shapes and structures recall the rituals of companionship.  There’s some pain as well, and a powerful evocation of war, but it’s a deliberately unexceptional story.  Behind the masks, Carmel wrote, the man and woman could be any of us.

It’s all the work of Anglo-Canadian ensemble Theatre ad Infinitum, who have certainly struck a chord with Translunar Paradise – it’s won plaudits in Edinburgh, London and around the world.  Perhaps its appeal lies in the fact that, even as it confronts death, it affirms what’s best in life.  Book early if you plan to catch this one; we’re far from the only ones who’ll be singing its praises.