Review: Blubber (Summerhall)

Katie Greenall seeks self-acceptance underwater

What do you do when you embark on a journey, but don’t learn the right lesson? When Katie Greenall set out to make Blubber exploring synchronised swimming as a fat woman, she hoped the process would be liberating. Instead, her stint learning the sport was brief and left her feeling even more detached from her body than when she started. In its place, she has created an experimental show where she tries to make sense of all the tangled metaphors and self-analysis about her relationship with her body. In the process, she creates a rare safe space.

Photo Credit: Claudia Legge

She tells us, in between spinning on a wheely chair and splashing in a Petri dish-like padding pond, that she feels separate from her body. More specifically, she feels she has to constantly advocate for an entirely separate entity. She speaks with such tenderness and vulnerability it is as though every word has taken her months to find, each metaphor a labour of love just to communicate her emotions. Even though those experiences are very specific, the underlying message applies to a plethora of other identities and social movements; reconciling what we have been conditioned to want with what we now believe.

Greenall mythologises her relationship with fatness, and even though that particular vision never feels fully realised it creates some beautiful stagecraft. It isn’t the inspirational show about self-acceptance that Greenall hoped to make: it is a harder and more nuanced portrayal of how unending that journey can be. It has a ruinous quality that will turn off audiences hoping for a sweeter, more conclusive performance, but that will connect deeply with anyone who also has lost the map on their soul search. Four stars.

Blubber has completed its run at Summerhall