The Palimpsest Project have engineered something quietly extraordinary with Imprints — a work that sidesteps cliché and lands somewhere between live cinema, theatre, and a fever-dream scrapbook. It takes on the underlit corners of fragile memory and art of piecing a self back together. The result feels both rawly intimate and widescreen cinematic.

We meet Charlie, back in her hometown for a reunion party. Old friends orbit the room, some grown distant, some unrecognisable, all reminding her of who she was and who she might still be. As she drifts through fragments of conversation and half-forgotten glances, questions surface about previous underlying events, where nostalgia collides with revelations.

The cast are uniformly strong, but the unsung star is the technical team. This is a show stitched together in real time: multiple XLR cameras, mobile phones hidden in plain sight, all projected onto a looming screen like an ever-shifting diary page. It’s the kind of high-wire “diorama-for-drama” that could descend into chaos, but instead it’s a marvel of control. Live colour correction smooths the jump between devices; cuts land like brushstrokes. What might have been gimmick becomes grammar.

And that’s what makes Imprints resonate. The tech never overshadows the storytelling — it amplifies it. Soundscapes embody that beautifully, images blur, voices echo, and the gaps in the story feel as telling as the details that remain.

Summerhall thrives on experiment, but this piece is ambitious, disorienting, and utterly human. A play that feels less like a reconstruction, instead thrives with originally.

****

Reviewed by Steve H

Venue : Summerhall

Time 14.15

Until date 25th Aug