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What makes ‘Adam’ affecting is how it tells its heart-wrenching story without pulling any punches, while at the same time being hugely life-affirming.
National Theatre of Scotland’s show is based on the life of Adam Kashmiry, who plays himself in it, and it transfers to the newly reopened Grand Hall at Battersea Arts Centre after making its debut at the 2017 Edinburgh Fringe.
Adam was born in 1991 in Alexandria, Egypt, as a girl. But nothing felt right. He didn’t want to wear dresses. He kissed another girl in the shop where he worked. But he knew he wasn’t gay. Then one day he asked the internet: ‘Is it possible for the soul of a man to be trapped in the body of a woman?’
In telling Adam’s journey transitioning from female to male, writer Frances Poet charts his sexual assault by an employer (here depicted as a nightmarish, looming silhouette projected on to the back wall), his escape to Scotland and the endlessness of the days he spent making asylum claims.
Poet strains too hard to link Adam’s painful negotiation between his past and his present to the ‘Arab Spring’ of 2011, which he watches on his laptop in Glasgow. But she deftly captures the resonances between Adam’s identity and his Kafkaesque immigrant status.
Cora Bissett’s generous, strikingly simple production, which evokes times and places with vivid staging and minimal props, also has an ace up its sleeve in the form of Kashmiry. Wandering to the front of the stage, he’s engaging, funny and geeky, as he talks excitedly about ‘The Lord of the Rings’.
The presence of Rehanna MacDonald, in identical clothes, as the embodiment of his past self is also effective. Their chemistry is great as they play out Adam’s struggle with his heritage, his in-denial mother and his feelings of guilt. In addition to Adam’s pain, they find warmth and humour.
It’s also refreshing to see the digital landscape – increasingly hard to regard as much more than the cesspit of humanity – as a place of solace and community. The pre-recorded videos of trans people that make up the Adam World Choir at the end are shatteringly moving as they fill the back screen.