Fringe production probes the shadow of male violence on women’s lives
Theatre at this year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe can still surprise with work that is urgent, intimate and uncomfortable. Man Or Bear, created by Katie Hurley and Sarah Hehir and staged in the Red Lecture Theatre at Summerhall, is one such piece: a compact, intense evening that sets family, survival and threat against a fractured theatrical language.
The piece, directed by Ursual Martinez, follows the story of Paige, played by Hurley, as she navigates independence as a single mother while being shadowed by an abusive ex-partner. The script’s texture — Hehir’s writing flagged by its recurrent fissures and metrical refrains — repeatedly pulls the audience out of strict realism, asking them to hold the psychological and social pressures shown side by side.
“Would you rather find yourself stuck alone in the forest with a man or a bear?”
That rhetorical image, used in the production’s framing, hangs over the show and reads as a sharp indictment of the state of women’s lives when threat is a constant presence. The staging choices amplify this: characters often face away from one another, and exchanges are deliberately fragmented, an aesthetic that aims to echo the chronology and emotional fractures at the play’s core.
Performances anchor the work
One of the production’s most widely noted strengths is the acting. Hurley’s portrayal of Paige is steady and convincing, conveying the worn tightrope of a mother attempting to rebuild while negotiating fear and pride. But it is the performance of Amaia Naima Aguinaga, who plays Paige’s daughter Angel, that critics have highlighted as particularly exceptional: a believable, layered teenage presence that shifts from energetic to wounded with ease.
Lesley Ewen appears in two roles — Paige’s landlord and the threatening ex — and provides a marked contrast that helps to sustain the play’s sense of peril.
| Performer | Role |
|---|---|
| Katie Hurley | Paige |
| Amaia Naima Aguinaga | Angel (Paige’s daughter) |
| Lesley Ewen | Landlord / Ex-partner |
Formal choices: strength and occasional tension
Directorial and design choices give the work its distinctive feel. Martinez’s commitment to a style of separation — characters rarely meet face-to-face and the staging privileges distance and imbricated speech — is an intelligent response to Hehir’s script and the constraints of the Red Lecture Theatre’s limited space. For many moments this approach sharpens the text’s thematic concerns.
However, that same loyalty to fragmentation can sometimes sit uneasily beside the play’s expressed celebration of female bonds. The production asks audiences to feel the intimacy and solidarity between women whilst witnessing them largely separated on stage, a paradox that occasionally dilutes the emotional payoff even as it underlines the play’s argument about estrangement under threat.
Verdict and context for Edinburgh audiences
The production has earned strong critical reaction: Olivia Burns awarded the show a top rating of five out of five in her review for corrblimey.uk. For Edinburgh Fringe-goers, Man Or Bear is a piece that will linger — not because it offers easy answers, but because it insists on naming the quiet, systemic pressures that shape women’s lives in the shadow of male violence.
For those selecting shows at Summerhall, the play represents a compact theatrical evening in which craft, performance and political urgency intersect. It may not be comfortable, but it is resolutely attentive to lived experience and the particular precarities of single motherhood.
- Where: Red Lecture Theatre, Summerhall, Edinburgh
- Creators: Katie Hurley and Sarah Hehir
- Director: Ursual Martinez
- Praise for performances particularly focused on Amaia Naima Aguinaga
Theatre at the Fringe frequently challenges audiences; Man Or Bear is a reminder that some of the most powerful work arrives small, precise and with its focus fixed on the realities people live with every day.
