Review: Failure Project

As the saying goes: the road to success is littered with failures. But who amongst us, lying in a rain-filled pothole, has ever thought “Ah! My greatest success lies just around the corner!”? Failure is all-consuming and leaves no room for such thoughts…and that road is all the longer and in a greater state of disrepair if you happen to be black and female.

Failure Project, written, directed and performed by Yolanda Mercy, presents Ade as a successful writer. All is good! Ade is busy, and her play has just been commissioned by a prestigious theatre. Cocooned within the aura of her own success, Ade is called into a meeting with the production team. It is then she is confronted with the stark reality of their mindset: a team pleased with themselves - bringing on-board a black playwright thereby checking the equality, diversity, inclusion check-box - now feel relinquished from all duties of care thereon in. They need a name - a face - in the lead role. Ade’s play is not about slavery; a theme which white audiences will flock to with their ready-made tears. A story about black female rocket scientists is challenging. Where’s the trauma?! Needing to broaden the play’s appeal, the production team hire an influencer with no acting experience for the main role. A dispirited Ade wonders on the merits of a success that comes from being the beneficiary of an EDI scheme. Was it her timely minority ethnicity which secured the commission?

Increasingly aware of the fragility of her position, Ade does not speak truth to power. She reasons her silence guarantees success even when ever more incursions are made into the integrity of her art. It is at this point her personal life starts to unravel, whereupon she turns to her absent friend, finding solace in her many calls to him.

At a time when Creative Scotland has closed its Open Fund, an artist doing a show about an artist doing a show is perfectly on cue. And a meta show comes with the perils of hermetic exclusivity: not at all being mindful of its audience. But just as Failure Project addresses issues around care, Mercy’s endearingly honest performance resonates with an audience moved by the pitfalls her protagonist has had to navigate.

The next time success knocks, check the box it comes in.

Failure Project continues its run at Summerhall until 26th August.