Edinburgh 2002

Fringe

Almost Human
Bedlam Theatre

Peter Rossi

Animal suffering through human eyes - how cute!

Almost Human attempts to invoke sympathy for the plight of a captured chimpanzee which suffers, inter alia, in a zoo, at a circus and is eventually killed in a research laboratory. In this respect, the show achieves its aim.

The chimp is seen as an innocent creature corrupted by cruel humans for a variety of ends, none of which benefit the chimp. An omnipresent theme is that the chimp is 'almost human' and this is used by a variety of characters for divergent reasons.

The acting is quite good, and the chimp is played intelligently, with very little clichéd beating of the chest or bounding on all fours. One curious issue is the way the three other actors change on stage, albeit to the side. One particular moment, about halfway through the play, involves a change mid-scene which does not help continuity.

The play raises the usual points about animal-human relationships, such as the need for and validity of animal research, and some more intelligent questions. Firstly, in the zoo scenes, the audience are situated as the animals in the zoo, and the visitors to the zoo are given ape-like characteristics whilst the real chimp looks on, which is an effective juxtaposition. Another plus point is the three scenes where the actors (with the chimp always in the background) exhort how much they love animals as pets for example, but proceed to argue amongst each other when their pets attack one another.

In a similar scene, they state their love for animals, but then express their love for bacon sandwiches or roast pork for example. These scenes capture the hypocrisy of animal lovers, who romanticise and sterilise nature, whilst simultaneously exploiting it. An apposite example of this curious affliction occurred in Regent's Park, London, when a pelican ate a mallard duck, and the aghast "audience" demanded that the pelican be prevented from doing this again, because it upset their children!

However, the foundation of the play is clichéd because it falls into the animal rights practice of using emotion as the argument against animal 'cruelty'. I accept that it might be difficult to present a scientific case on stage, but emotion is a subjective tool. I am sure that the sight of malaria sufferers or patients being refused open heart surgery will emotionally trump a dog in a research lab. Or if it doesn't, you need to re-evaluate your philosophy.

This aside, if you are interested in the animal-human discussion, you will enjoy this play. If you are an animal rights advocate, you might even cry, but I didn't.

Until August 24: 17.10 (50mins).