Review by Jo Tomalin
www.ForAllEvents.com
August 12 2025
The Quiet Earth Beneath
Casey Jay Andrews invites us into her space at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2025. The setting is different from the usual rows of seats, which is intriguing. In fact, looking around the space a musician is set up at one end of the large rectangular space with an impressive array of instruments and technology, Andrews stands at the other end next to a microphone on a stand, and there is a theatre ghost light center stage with one row of chairs in a large oval shape. While this sounds like a functional description so far, what we experience during the next hour is rather special!
Andrews takes charge speaking to us alternately at the microphone on the stand and then holding the mic as she moves around the space. This is her world, her creation and she is genuine in her approach. She does have a compelling performative presence and switches to her lower key self when moving around the space closer to us. She sets up stories of the underworld, imagined and real as well as poignant moments of truth from her deep self.
The story is well written with strong descriptive moments yet complex as Andrews weaves different aspects of stories or parallel thoughts together. A story about Sienna with a yellow suitcase staying in a strange B&B with fickle room numbers unfolds while Andrews layers the show with her own experiences of the underworld, literally as a young cave explorer in South Wales.
Jack Brett, the outstandingly creative musician plays his original music throughout the spoken word storytelling which adds other world quality to this performance – and adds so much more to the atmosphere. His mix of beats, rhythms and melodies complement Andrews’ spoken voice so well and add an unusual feeling and imagery as if an epic film is being created and playing out in front of us.
Andrews is an award-winning writer performer whose prior shows at fringe festivals have been acclaimed. She is also a designer with an impressive portfolio of cutting edge theatre design projects. In her own shows Andrews is able to bring all these imaginative strands together to create what is the reason we go to the theatre, to experience something else, to come out having been transported and this is what Andrews does. There is much quality in Andrews’ work and she opens her heart and whisks us away, away from our lives and thoughts and somewhere else!
For More Information:
https://www.caseyjayandrews.com/
Originally from England Jo Tomalin is currently based in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she is a reviewer for Dance & Theatre at www.ForAllEvents.com and works in the performing arts as a freelance movement specialist, director + actor. She is also a Professor of theatre performance in the School of Theatre & Dance at San Francisco State University, teaching Movement and Voice for actors, Storytelling and Acting.
Jo Tomalin studied Classical Ballet for 12 years. She graduated from London University’s Laban Centre teaching credential program in Modern Dance, Art of Movement & Choreography, then she trained in Physical Theatre, Masks, and Devised theatre at the renowned professional acting school “Ecole Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq” Paris, France. Jo studied Classical Acting at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), London; and holds an A.T.C.L. in Voice and Acting from Trinity College of Dramatic Art, London, and a PH.D. in Education from Capella University, MN, USA.
