ED FRINGE 2024 REVIEW: Surrender

SURRENDER

Tech Cube 0, Summerhall

In a creative partnership with writer Sophie Swithinbank, Phoebe Ladenburg gives a raw, exposed performance that lays everything on the floor in this open world where she is judged and condemned over the course of seventy minutes for the supposed neglect of her child. The pacing suffers in the first twenty minutes to a point where the exposition feels a little stretched, but soon rages into gear, without Ladenburg ever letting go of her controlled emotional state as Mother. Swithinbank Co-Directs alongside Ladenburg too, to produce a character that always feels on the brink of a breakdown, and that too allows us to follow the Mother’s journey intensely, with bated breath at moments, and a rather troubled ending, that still leaves you with a bit of hope for the future of the character that we have been with in this short space of her lifetime.