Stop Playing Jacob’s Ladder With My Spine by Hot Cat Collective (Fringe Review) 3 stars ***

Stop Playing Jacob’s Ladder With My Spine is a curious animal. A feverish, uncomfortable, and at times quite beautiful blend of expressive contemporary dance, physical theatre, and creative captioning, this show quickly unfurls itself into a surrealist story of voyeurism, exposure, hiddenness, and the innate human desire to be understood. In four separate corners of one ant-infested property, four housemates struggle with their own compulsions and shame, each played out individually in nightmarish-tableaus. 

Not strictly dance, and not strictly theatre, Jacob’s Ladder rests uneasily between the two. The show’s strengths lie in the cohesiveness of the team itself – not only is each performer clearly talented in contemporary dance, with the opening dance sequence being particularly spellbinding, but you can truly feel a genuine sense of camaraderie and compassionate understanding between the performers throughout. Their connections feel real and built-in; they do not pull away from each other in their vulnerabilities or grossness, but each lean equally into their own strange and vulnerable storyline with bravery. To any audience member, it is clear that they love what they do – and that an intimate part of each of them has gone into making this show. This alone makes it worth watching. 

Sometimes like water, sometimes like a spiderweb, creative captioning flutters, slides, and spikes behind them. Whilst often quite on-the-nose in its experimental character, the prose is interestingly crafted and unique, lending itself to the wildness of the show like another lead performer. Small pockets of the creative captioning are undeniably special, and left me wanting for more sticky, uncomfy, lustfull, painful, and paranoid musings. 

Being an experimental show, there is less of a clear through-line in terms of story. At times this works well, however some aspects of Jacob’s Ladder feel almost too abstracted and removed from the topics at hand to enjoyably follow. This show is certainly not for everyone, but a real joy can be found in this uniqueness. This whirlwind of nosebleeds, plastic sheeting, ‘chippy smiles’, spilt milk, microwave meals, and dirty dishes holds good promise for the future as a bold piece of experimental dance-theatre, but perhaps needs some refinement and re-interrogation in its current state. 

Stop Playing Jacob’s Ladder With My Spine by Hot Cat Collective runs at Zoo Southside, 21:35 (50 minutes), until 30th August.