Circus and dance performer Sadiq Ali (creator of 2022’s brilliant The Chosen Haram) pairs up with former MMA fighter and parkour practitioner David Banks to explore the relationship between masculinity and violence in this thoroughly original piece of dance theatre from company Superfan. What starts out as horseplay ends up pulling no punches. 
There may be a case to argue that masculinity gets enough attention in art; men have, after all, been the default protagonists of most books and plays for centuries. However, rather than unquestioningly carrying this archetypal macho hero along, Stuntman chooses instead to stop and stare at him. 
The piece starts out as deceptively light-hearted. The theme from Top Gun is playing as we enter, and Banks and Ali, trussed up in skin-tight clothing and gun holsters, are posturing their way through some choreographed fight moves. They parody scenes from action films, repeating the line ‘see you in hell, motherfucker’ as they come up with creative ways to simulate death. Their tomfoolery in flinging each other around is so gleeful it’s almost charming, and they milk their boisterous physical comedy for every drop. 

Then the fight sequences begin to be interspersed with personal anecdotes about each performer’s own encounters with violence; these too start out lightly. Banks tells us enthusiastically about an action movie he appeared in, and later about his first MMA fight. Ali talks about his love of dance and demonstrates the power of the male body to create beauty rather than destruction in a fluid, elegant passage of movement. But gradually the storytelling grows darker until, before we know it, the seductive pull of inane fun has sucked us into something hellish and terrible. 

If there is one tiny criticism, it’s that the stories seem slightly imbalanced towards Banks (he’s listed as part of the original creation team) and it would be good to hear in a little more depth the anecdotes about Ali’s relationship to violence; some of his earlier experiences seem to pass by relatively swiftly compared to Banks’ tales. But it is the slightest of complaints in a show that genuinely feels like it is reaching out to an audience beyond the regular dance and theatre crowds. Stuntman has thought painstakingly carefully both about the nuances of its ideas and the ways in which it puts them across. This is the kind of theatre we need.

Stuntman, Summerhall, until 25 August, 5.50pm.