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Tucked away behind the Summerhall arts centre is the hottest new venue at the Edinburgh fringe … quite literally. The Sauna theatre has proved popular among theatregoers at the world’s largest performing arts festival, with shows inside its purpose-built, 80-seat sauna drawing sweaty, swimwear-clad crowds.
Visitors may be forgiven for thinking the sauna is a gimmick, especially at the fringe where absurd, experimental and ludicrous performances are not uncommon. This year they include a man drinking his own urine, someone singing the same song over and over, physical feats of exertion and several fully naked shows.
But the reality is more wholesome, especially regarding nudity, which is not allowed at the venue, co-founded by the theatre makers James Grieve and Lucy Osborne.
“We’ve done a lot of research over the last few years and art and culture in saunas proliferates the world over,” Grieve said. “There’s a great tradition of storytelling, of folk music, in saunas.
“Then there’s this incredible art form, aufguss, which is a sauna master infusing ice and water with essential oils, placing the infusion on the sauna stove and circulating the fragrant steam with towel-waving choreography. That’s usually accompanied by music and also storytelling, costume, lighting, sound. It’s basically a show in a sauna.”
Deborah Carr, the head of the sauna, who trains professional sauna masters when she’s not at the fringe, said: “In the UK, this is the first sauna theatre, but we see them around the world – from Japan to Germany to Italy, [where] there is a sauna theatre that holds 320 people.
“I think this is just emerging in the UK and seeing this here for the first time is really exciting, because it then plants a seed and it starts us growing.”
Inside are three tiers of wooden seating surrounding three stoves, which can heat the air to 90C (194F), professional-quality stage lighting and a (only slightly cooler) sound booth.
Shows have built-in breaks, though audience members can leave at any point – and the braver ones can enter the cold plunge. Showers, mirrors and hairdryers make it more feasible for visitors to go about their day afterwards.
The shows vary from morning raves to storytelling, theatre and music events. Mysteries of the Picts, at noon every day, features aufguss from two sauna masters performed to traditional folk music. Actors tell the story of ancient sweat houses thought to have provided community spaces in Scotland for Celtic tribes in the late Roman period.
Grieve said a performance that had worked especially well was an adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s The Waves. “Virginia Woolf talks a lot about heat and light and water. The aufguss masters perform rituals to that text and really help people feel like they’re inside the language, like they are feeling and sensing the language on their skin, through their nose, as well as listening to the actors perform it.”
The theatre’s organisers said the challenges had been around etiquette, such as ensuring people sit on towels. They said some attenders had turned up assuming it would be a metaphorical sauna, despite emails reminding visitors to bring a bathing suit.
Those who arrive without swimsuits can borrow them – an offer many have, somewhat gamely, taken up.
Grieve and Osborne hope to bring the venue back next year, when audiences may have a better understanding of what they have booked.
“This has been a really exciting month for us to experiment with what’s possible in the sauna space,” Grieve said. “What we want to do is try to find the kind of work that only works in a sauna or that works best in a sauna. There are plenty of hot rooms in Edinburgh where you can see theatre.”
The response had been amazing, Grieve added. “I think one of the great joys is seeing people leave the space having had an experience that’s made them feel better physically, emotionally. And that was something we really wanted to capture and harness.
“We really believe that art and culture is good for you physically and mentally and that combined with sauna, maybe it becomes kind of exponentially good for you.”
Carr said: “We see these lovely rosy cheeks and beaming faces as they go out. And then when people have come back, they’ve said: ‘I just felt so amazing. Not only did I enjoy it, I felt great for the rest of the day.’”
