Shauna Macdonald gives an astonishing performance in Born to Run, which is undoubtedly a unique theatrical experience.
The only prop on stage is a treadmill and, apart from a few minutes, she is running on the treadmill for the duration of this fifty-five-minute long play. Based on a true story, Jane (Shauna Macdonald) is running - pacing herself - to stop her recurring epileptic fits. To stop the pain when the 'aura' comes, heralding the onset of a new attack.
As she is running on the treadmill, she surfs the net desperately trying to seek a remedy and finds a woman who has discovered that running can stop the attacks. So Jane is endeavouring to outrun the fits by running her one-hundred-and-ten San Antonio desert marathon.
But can we ever succeed in running away from traumatic episodes in our lives? And in our endeavour to flee from difficulties, are we also fleeing and separating ourselves from loved ones? This is the dilemma Jane finally faces up to.
It is a slick production. A screen is set up at the back of the stage and we immediately have access to the information on the net that Jane has accessed and periodically, as she is running the miles, a voice pipes up to remind her of the distance she has run and to remind her if she has actually come to a decision about her life.
Gary McNair is the writer of the play, and certainly it is a visionary production, primarily because there are very few actresses with the type of stamina Shauna MacDonald has, to be able to run that distance and still produce a great acting performance.
Show Times: Aug 23rd: 5:30pm. Aug 24th: 8:30pm. Aug 25th: 10:00am, Aug 26th: 12:30pm
Ticket Prices: Aug 23rd - £18/£13/£6. Aug 24th and 25th - £20/£15. Aug 26th - £6-18