Glass Child
★★★★☆ Real
Summerhall (Venue 26): Thurs 6 – Sun 16 Aug 2026
Review by Hugh Simpson
Glass Child at Summerhall for the first week of the Fringe inspires not only with its openness and its disarming integrity, but also with its spectacle.
The dance-theatre production from House of Oz and The Farm features Kayah Guenther, a young man with Down syndrome, and his sister Maitreyah Guenther. Maitreyah explains her family’s background and how she didn’t realise there was anything ‘different’ about her brother until she witnessed other people’s reactions to him, which she found inexplicable.
Kayah Guenther with Maitreyah Guenther. Pic Glass Child.
A ‘glass child’ is the sibling of someone with extra support needs, with the ‘glass’ referring to the way adults can look right through the child to focus on their sibling. There’s certainly an honesty to the way that the situation is discussed, with the opening of the piece being a haltingly self-aware, meta-theatrical monologue of the sort that can annoy but impresses here with its honesty.
That honesty is carried through the whole production (created by the Guenthers and by Gavin Webber and Kate Harman, who direct with empathy and authority. The simplest of stage set-ups (five chairs, one mic) becomes endlessly versatile. There’s film (including some family home movies, and excellent animation by Rozina Suliman and Kayah), and there are also spoken sections.
gloriously wild
However, the piece’s focus is the dance sequences. There’s a gloriously wild, abandoned atmosphere to some of it, as well as some more controlled, more sombre sequences, but the overall feeling is of support, interconnectedness and a deep familial love.
Anna Whittaker’s sound design and composition provides a bedrock for routines of shifting responsibility, interconnectedness and reflection that are involving and heartwarming.
Running time: One hour and 5 minutes (including one interval).
Summerhall (Old Lab), 1 Summerhall, EH9 1PL (Venue 26)
Thursday 6 – Sunday 16 August 2026.
Daily: 1.30pm.
Tickets and details: Book here at EdFringe.com.
Tickets direct from venue: Book here.
The Farm website: www.thefarm.company
Facebook: @thefarmgoldcoast
Instagram: @_thefarm
Linktree: @_thefarm.
Maitreyah Guenther and Kayah Guenther. Pic Glass Child.
ENDS
