Playbill Goes Fringe
National Theatre of Scotland’s Thrown Focuses on the Women of Highland Wrestling
Nat McCleary’s play is part of the Edinburgh International Festival, and sold out early on in its run.
Adiza Shardow, Lesley Hart, Efé Agwele, and Chloe-Ann Tylor in Thrown
Julie Howden
The Edinburgh Festival Fringe is the biggest arts festival in the world, with nearly 3,500 shows. This year, Playbill is in Edinburgh for the entire month in August for the festival and we’re taking you with us. Follow along as we cover every single aspect of the Fringe, aka our real-life Brigadoon!
At the top of Thrown, five women in brightly colored satin capes come running onto the stage, encouraging cheers as they strut and pose. It isn’t long though, before the capes are discarded and the audience learns that these women of wrestling will likely not be whacking each other with folding chairs. These women are competing in the wide world of Highland Games backhold wrestling.
Thrown is the debut play from actor-turned-writer Nat McCleary and presented by National Theatre of Scotland, as part of the Edinburgh International Festival. The women in it are all vastly different, a cross-section of modern Scotland. And while they do train together and practice wrestling moves, they are really each wrestling with different issues facing modern women, primarily around questions of identity.
Chloe-Ann Tylor and Adiza Shardow in Thrown
Julie Howden
The play centers mostly around Jo, a biracial Scottish-Jamaican woman—I learned in a brief conversation with McCleary following the performance that Jo is most closely based on the playwright's experiences. When Imogen, a wealthy Black Londoner, moves to town, Jo is allowed room to explore and truly acknowledge her own Blackness for the first time in her life. The new friendship causes a rift between Jo and her childhood bestie Chantelle, who doesn’t fully understand the importance of Imogen in Jo’s life.
Adiza Shardow’s Jo is smart and steady, even in the face of her own questioning. And she’s infinitely easy to root for, although there is no great risk for her if she fails. Efè Agwele as Imogen and Chloe-Ann Tylor as Chantelle strike the perfect balance as friend to Jo and foe to each other. No one in this contentious triumvirate is the bad guy.
The story’s ensemble is rounded out by Coach Pamela (a captivating Lesley Hart) and elder wrestler Helen (a charming Maureen Carr), each also in search of who they are in this moment. Pamela’s seemingly contradictory actions of binding her breasts while longing for motherhood, and Helen’s unwillingness to settle into retirement both make for interesting explorations of identity and womanhood.
The scenes are short and the action, as directed by Johnny McKnight, moves at a snappy pace. The story bounces from the locker room to the bus and beyond, interspersed with dynamic group training scenes—punctuated with wrestling moves and mantras.
Thrown is a compelling investigation of what it means to be a woman and what it means to be Scottish. It’s a fine first play from McCleary, and I look forward to whatever subjects she wants to grapple with next.
Thrown runs through August 27 at the Traverse Theatre. Click here for more.
Maureen Carr, Chloe-Ann Tylor, Lesley Hart, Efé Agwele in Thrown
Julie Howden
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