EDINBURGH 2026 Review: THE SUBPLOT: A HYPERFIXATION ON THE TITAN SUBMERSIBLE, Summerhall
Runs until 31 August.
Welcome to Sophie Smyth’s hyperfixation: the implosion of OceanGate’s Titan submersible. If you were living under a rock during the summer of 2023, the Titan was a 22-foot experimental submersible that imploded in the North Atlantic Ocean on the 18th of June, 2023, on a commercial dive to the wreckage of the Titanic. All five people on board, including the CEO of OceanGate—Stockton Rush, aka Sub-Daddy for the purpose of the piece—were killed in milliseconds. But that’s not the fascinating bit. The curious part of all of this is how we treated this incident. Like Smyth says, it was an incredible time online.
Once the Titan lost signal with the surface, the internet exploded. The memes were instant. Television channels all around the world were showing oxygen countdowns on the news. But our story starts a few days before that. As the Titan was making its way to the bottom of the ocean, Smyth was on a different kind of descent. Whilst struggling to land stable work as a creative, the tragedy spiked her interest and lit a fire. It consumed her for years, and now we have the privilege of sifting through the evidence alongside her to follow her interpretation of the events.
It’s an infectious, hilarious, utterly bleak theatrical adventure. Smyth is effortlessly entertaining: her passion is contagious and her research is precise. A master storyteller, her magnetism relies on a delicious brand of dark humour. A big chunk of netizens will find this a most tickling production. But Smyth doesn’t merely present her data with an amusing and witty streak: The Subplot is a meditation on mortality.
The real message of the play sneaks up on you, taking you by surprise with a burst of emotion. “Their ending felt like my beginning” she shares, after candidly admitting to having humanised and empathised with these unscrupulous billionaires and their limitless ambition too much for comfort.
As Smyth questions the cult of personality that led these ultra-wealthy men to their deaths, she examines legacy, capitalism, ego, egotism, arrogance, and the universal hunger for knowledge. She reverts a list of philosophical and moral queries inspired by the circumstances to her personal journey, directly investigating what the Titan predictable and totally preventable catastrophe can tell us about contemporary society. It’s a nuanced, perfectly paced, surprisingly educational comedy.
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