Water Colour in Edinburgh — a delicate two-hander on depression
Playwright Milly Sweeney's play Water Colour, showing at Edinburgh's Traverse Theatre, follows two young people whose separate stories of everyday pressure intertwine into a portrait of mental health struggle. The work won best new play at the 2026 Cats awards.
Edinburgh's Traverse Theatre is hosting Water Colour, a two-hander by young playwright Milly Sweeney, running until 30 August. The play examines how ordinary pressures — such as the stress of finishing an art degree show or the anxiety of starting a new job — can wear down a person's mental health.
With care, the play traces the steps that can lead someone from depression, worsened by circumstance, toward thoughts of suicide. Its central characters are Esme (Molly Geddes), who feels isolated both at Prestwick Academy and at Glasgow School of Art, and Harris (Ryan J Mackay), who appears to be thriving after landing a job as a kitchen porter at a Michelin-star restaurant.
An unusual structure
What sets Water Colour apart — and helped it win best new play at the 2026 Cats awards — is that the two young people don't know each other. Their stories unfold separately, apart from one pivotal moment when their paths cross, with one unknowingly helping the other at a moment of crisis. The structure has been described as shaped like a figure of eight.
The production is a joint venture between the Byre Theatre, Pitlochry Festival Theatre and the Traverse. Geddes and Mackay perform with energy, narrating each other's storylines to create the impression that events are happening simultaneously. Each also plays a supporting figure in the other's story — Geddes as Harris's overbearing head chef, Mackay as Esme's opinionated tutor — under Sally Reid's lively direction.
The play's lighter moments balance its serious subject matter. While Esme struggles with paralysing inertia, still in bed mid-afternoon, Harris is out partying and spending freely. As the play loops back on itself, their situations reverse, revealing the fragility of emotional wellbeing without overstating the point.
