New Writing with a Long Shelf Life: A Review of Lifelong at The Fringe

★★★½☆

Lifelong, a new play by Lynda Radley in collaboration with Pepperdine Scotland, poses the question: what would the world look like if people could live forever? And in Radley’s version, much like in the Justin Timberlake 2011 sci-fi thriller In Time, this advancement is eventually commercialised, only accessible by the wealthy. The rich get richer, and the poor get old. 

From director Hollace Starr, Lifelong is striking from the jump. With impressively versatile lighting and sound design by Aaron Quevedo and Mak Burke, respectively, the actors distinguish between scenes and location by moving lit LED boards around the stage. It is visually compelling and adds to a general futuristic quality of the set, aided by the synthetic and cinematic soundscapes produced by Burke. A special commendation is due as well to costume designer Melanie Watnick, whose choices place the characters firmly both in a tattered and arid landscape we cannot see and a hyper-sterile place of privilege. 

Lynda Radley and Pepperdine Scotland, a multi-award-winning off-campus theatre study program that brings students from the American Pepperdine University to Edinburgh, previously collaborated in 2016 with The Interference, which earned a Fringe First Award, a Broadway Baby Bobby Award and the Amnesty International Freedom of Expression Award Shortlist. And where the writing is concerned, Lifelong couldn’t be tighter. Radley is a seasoned veteran, and her work shows it. Her imagination of this world is contained, controlled, and specific. Even with a far larger cast than you’re used to seeing at the Fringe, Radley’s characters are distinct and well-explored. Lifelong reads almost like a how-to for this group of university students. Without any spoilers, it takes a world order, introduces an issue to that order, and over the course of the play, you watch that issue expand and ultimately dominate. Lifelong is exactly what it should be. 

The greatest drawback found in this production, while still immensely impressive, might just be its very selling point: a company of students. The weakest element of Lifelong was its performances, and in a larger cast this became more and more visible as the piece went on. While there were pockets of beauty from Hailey Soomin Lee’s Viv, Eden Gamble’s Billie, and Mandy Tatum’s Eden, at other times the cast seemed bored, almost walking through the show. While the cast may have looked as young as their characters were meant to, they simply couldn’t convey the 200-plus years of experience needed.

Elena Cebulash

Image via Pepperdine Scotland