Incognito
★★★★☆ Earnest
Assembly Roxy: Tue 29 Apr – Fri 2 May 2025
Review by Rebecca Mahar
The Edinburgh Graduate Theatre Group brings Nick Payne’s Incognito to the Assembly Roxy in a production packed with lightning-fast transitions and versatile performances.
Following three stories in different locations and points in time, Incognito jumps repeatedly between the stories of Thomas Harvey (Al Innes), the American pathologist who performed the autopsy on Albert Einstein in 1955 and stole his brain; Henry Maison (Nicholas Thorne), a man who suffered from seizures, now in memory care in 1953 England; and Martha Murphy (Lucy Hagan-Walker), a clinical neuropsychologist in present day London.
The cast of EGTG’s Incognito. Pic Stuart Tweedie
These stories appear at first to only be connected by their dealings with the human mind and the nature of memory, but it eventually becomes clear that some of them, at least, are related in more concrete ways. Jenna Donoghue, Esther Gilvray, and Gabriel Bird round out the ensemble, with all six actors taking on multiple roles, crossing over from their primary stories to fill out the worlds of all three.
striking a balance
Incognito was originally written for a cast of four, doubling several more roles apiece, but EGTG’s decision to increase the size of the ensemble hasn’t diluted the show, striking a balance between easing the burden on individual actors while creating more opportunity, and maintaining the frenetic nature of the play that small-cast multi-doubling helps to create.
The transitions between each character played by a single actor are crisp, with these often happening in the briefest of offstage or blackout moments, and occasionally onstage with a shift of lighting.
Al Innes and Esther Gilvray in EGTG’s Incognito. Pic: Stuart Tweedie.
The addition of a pair of glasses or a coat, the removal of a skirt or jacket, are sufficient costume change to signify a new character has arrived, with the bulk of the work being done by the performers’ hard graft in specificity, and excellent direction by Alexander Cook.
Aiding these transitions are lighting by Gordon Hughes and sound from the production’s composer Dug Campbell. Unified and with motifs aligning with the play’s different locations and times, light and sound work hard to establish a grounded sense of place amid the constantly shifting timelines.
dangling
Incognito’s only major weakness is in the script itself. The disparate threads seem to to be weaving towards a singular conclusion; but Payne doesn’t quite succeed in bringing them together tidily. The resolution of Martha and Henry’s stories is moving and well foreshadowed, but feels slightly lacking in detail, while Thomas’s story is left dangling.
The supporting characters of each of the main stories simply fade away, which would have been entirely satisfying if each of the central stories were better resolved.
Lucy Hagan-Walker and Jenna Donoghue in EGTG’s Incognito. Pic: Stuart Tweedie.
EGTG’s decision to insert an interval (in, to give them credit, the best place in the show to have one) doesn’t help either, creating a weirdly short second half that increases the expectation that there should have been more to the story.
Incognito is superbly executed, taking clever advantage of the Roxy Upstairs space. While the script may be imperfect, EGTG have pulled off a marvellous rendition of it, full of heart and earnest contemplation on memory, identity, and human connection.
Running time: Two hours with one interval
Assembly Roxy (Upstairs), 2 Roxburgh Place, EH8 9SU
Tuesday 29 April – Friday 2 May 2025
Evenings: 7:30pm.
Tickets and details: Book here.
During the run of Incognito, EGTG are raising funds for Alzheimer Scotland. Learn more and donate here: www.alzscot.org.
Nicholas Thorne and Gabriel Bird in EGTG’s Incognito. Pic: Stuart Tweedie
ENDS
