Theatre review: Under The Mulberry Tree
THE beautiful new studio at the Festival Theatre is an immensely flexible space, ideal for dance, puppet theatre and every kind of experimentation. This week, though – until Saturday – it plays host to a thoroughly conventional middle-class drama, presented by brilliant young London-based director Hannah Eidinow and the play’s author, Timothy Jones.
Under The Mulberry Tree - Festival Theatre Studio, Edinburgh
***
Set in the 1950s, Under The Mulberry Tree begins like a Noel Coward play, as middle-aged idler Monsieur Guillaume, at his shabby small hotel in the south of France, receives an unexpected visit from his smart Parisian sister Gilberte. Things take a more emotional turn, however, when Gilberte confesses that she is pregnant, following a rash affair with a younger man, undertaken in revenge for her husband’s serial infidelities.