Searching for words to describe Fabled is difficult, which is appropriate as Lois Tucker does not utter a single one for the entire hour she is on stage. Apparently stuck in some sort of bizarre storytelling multidimensional box, she proceeds despite her own confusion to act a series of different narratives told by a variety of distant and semi-interested narrators. Brief power cuts and interruptions in the stories suggest a slightly more sinister background to the entire situation.
I use the word ‘apparently’ in the previous paragraph as the plots of the individual stories and indeed the overarching plot of Lois herself are not the most penetrable. A brief possession scene, superbly lipsynced by the performer, reveals some minor hints in a period of exposition and casual chats by the narrators occasionally point back to a menacing situation, but this never seems to quite be resolved in any way, shape or form. It is simply still there by the end of the play.
Despite story issues, the performance of the play itself is excellent. Lois Tucker is clearly a very talented silent comic with an equally talented person in the tech box providing her sounds. Such synchronicity between the two allows the audience to almost believe that Lois is in fact single-handedly playing the 20th Century Fox theme tune with her air trumpet, cymbals and violin. Certainly I have seen nothing else in the Fringe quite like this and thus this is definitely an interesting piece to see, particularly if you are tired of witty one-liners or mounds of exposition being vomited on you and want to engage in more universal humour.
