After the Rainfall, Pleasance Dome, Edinburgh

A blurb describing After the Rainfall, a new production by Curious Directive, says that the drama explores “ant migration patterns”. It does, in depth, but don’t let that put you off.

The pyramid-shaped perspex ant farm that sits at the front of the stage becomes a symbol of the play’s exploration of the way we communicate. Everything from the construction of Egypt’s pyramids and the Rosetta Stone to Twitter and the Arab Spring are viewed through the prism of many tiny ant-like connections, spreading across the globe.

Represented by the actors’ tapping their fingers on each other in tiny ant-like steps, connections appear (after a confusing start) between four individual stories from seemingly insignificant points in history - from an artist in a mining town in Cumbria in 1986, to a modern-day girl who saw her brother die in the protests in Tahrir Square.

The effect is of a tightly interwoven pattern of messages about human rebellion, determinism and nuclear waste. Abstract movement from the ensemble cast, video clips and projections of synaptic maps combine to form an ambitious comment on the transmission of ideas through a vulnerable world.

10-27 August. Box office phone 0131 556 6550

www.curiousdirective.com/