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Karel Capek old fears revisited
by CALUM BARNES

War With the Newts
Summerhall Basement
Edinburgh
 

Through a plastic curtain we are ushered in one by one for processing — a brief questioning, a torch flashed in our eyes, wrist stamped then guided by an overly friendly crew member to our seats, an orange crate, in the claustrophobic hull of Captain Von Toch’s ship.

We are greeted by the digital avatars of the nebulous yet nefarious organisation “The Syndicate” who introduce a series of “entertainment protocols” narrating how we have arrived at the present war with the newts.

Tyrell Jones’s timely adaptation of Karel Capek’s 1936 novel, a surreal yet savage satire on the depredations of global capitalism and the rise of fascism, brings the polysemic allegory to the post-Brexit, global-warming scorched present.

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