EDINBURGH 2023: Review: CERTAIN DEATH AND OTHER CONSIDERATIONS, ZOO Playground

The world is going to end in 80 years and two couples are deciding whether it’s still a good idea to have children. And then one of the women falls for the other couple’s surrogate. Certain Death and Other Considerations has a stand-out premise, exploring the very real issue of eco-anxiety through a fun, apocalypse romantic drama. The execution of this premise, however, falls a little short.

LA-based group Nine Twenty Collective offer up a character-focussed devised dark comedy. As the show begins, the stage is set with a looming red digital clock - the doomsday countdown. It’s a hugely effective set piece, making sure that this paralysing reminder is always at the front of both the characters’ and audience's minds. The clock is also used to structure the play - the number of years to go lets us know where we are in the timeline, as the story darts around in a non-linear fashion. 

This aspect of the show is a great idea, but becomes more than a little confusing - it takes a while to catch on to it, meaning the order of events can very easily become muddled. It also somewhat takes away from the pacing and dramatic impact of the piece, as situations are established and tension is built, but the story then hops forward or backwards in time. 

Nonetheless, the story that begins to take shape is an intriguing one. Writer Eliza Frakes creates two couples that are distinct and realistic, and the show explores every possible dynamic between them, helping us to understand all the ways in which they fit together - or don’t. The queer plotline involving the surrogate is an especially interesting strand of the story, as well as a section that hints at climate change deniers. A lot of careful thought and development has gone into this script.

Perhaps, though, that is the show’s issue. Every single combination of characters get their moment, in a way that begins to feel a little too methodical. And a lot of the resulting scenes are made up of domestic arguments, beginning to feel a little repetitive. For a show that could have intense, claustrophobic vibes, Certain Death often takes on the tone of a soap opera, centring bickering couples for a little too long.

It also feels like it leaves off at the most interesting point. In some ways this is effective, leaving us to ponder how the story continues, but it’s a shame, too. The show features so much build-up, so many developments, that we want to see real drama and chaos unfold. 

Directors Frakes and Emma Pierce Rempel do a good job at maintaining the flow between scenes, using their theatre space intelligently. Red lighting for transitions is used to good effect, a reminder of the stakes at play.

The cast all give strong performances, even if they are a little unmatched. Rempel is a stand-out for her energy and comedy, starting the show with a funny monologue and building a portrait of a warm but anxious woman. However, her high-energy role feels somewhat out of place among other more naturalistic performances, including that of Frakes. The couples, too, lack a little chemistry, which has an impact on the believability of the arguments they have.

Certain Death describes itself as featuring ‘physical theatre’, which is somewhat true. There are two or three sequences that take us out of the realm of realism through their use of movement. While these are interesting and valuable to the plot, they are a little too sparse to fully feel like part of the show. Were they more integrated into the fabric of the piece, they could have been a great addition. 

Despite its imperfections, Certain Death and Other Considerations is a thoroughly engaging look at what it means to know that time is running out. It presents a smart parallel to the climate crisis, taking away the specifics of each situation to leave us with the real issues and emotions at hand. 

Certain Death and Other Considerations runs at ZOO Playground until 27 August

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