**** FOUR STARS for LIDLESS, Daily Telegraph
By Daisy Bowie-Sell, 10th August 2010
Lined up and handed small folding chairs, the audience are pointed to a large, brighly lit white box in the middle of the stage. We climb into it and arrange ourselves around the edges. This already feels a little uncomfortable - the box is a prison of sorts, and the doors close behind us as we sit down.
The feeling of imprisonment is intended to physically represent the experience of detainees at Guantanamo Bay but Lidless, an excellent new play brought to Edinburgh by High Tide, also focuses on the lives of the interrogators.
Flash forward 15 years and Alice has no memories of 'Gitmo’ and lives with her daughter and husband, a reformed heroin user. There is a pact to not ask each other questions about their past, so the family glide by, never facing up to their actions. Rhiannon, their daughter, feels instinctively something is missing from her life, however, and when a man turns up asking Alice for help they are forced to confront the truth.
With bright light bulbs overhead and the actors mostly wearing white, the feeling of being exposed is tangible. The director, Steven Atkinson, plays on this theme throughout. His delicate direction is complemented by a very strong script by American playwright Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig. The story grips and the characters are well drawn, demonstrating the complexities of human nature and the ability people have to put morals to one side.
Read the review online here.