Rift review – can a liberal and his white supremacist brother ever see eye to eye?

Traverse theatre, EdinburghHumanity and understanding permeate Gabriel Jason Dean’s play inspired by a real-life relationship but awkward questions remain unaskedFamilies fell out over Brexit. They split over Trump. But few schisms can have been more severe than that of playwright Gabriel Jason Dean and his brother. It is a relationship that inspired this probing two-hander in which a bookish student at the start of a literary career (Blake Stadnik) visits his incarcerated sibling (Matt Monaco), hoping to help with his legal claim for release. As their meetings unfold over years and then decades, one becomes a celebrated champion of liberal values, while the other emerges as a white supremacist.What hope for reconciliation when each brother has views antithetical to the other’s? It is a theme that was explored by Chris Thorpe in Confirmation (2014), which described the playwright’s real-life attempt to see eye to eye with a Holocaust denier. That play was needling and unsettling in a way this one is not, but what Rift has on its side is the fraternal bond at its heart.At the Traverse, Edinburgh, until 24 August.All our Edinburgh festival reviews Continue reading...

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