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Theatre listings >
Fermentation
- adapted from Angelica Jacob's novel Fermentation
Director and Adaptor - Ben Harrison
Set Designer - Catherine Lindow
Costume Designer - Alice Bee
Composer - Phillip Pinsky
Lighting Designer - George Tarbuck assisted by Andrew Coulton
Technical Manager - Paul Clayton
Company - Grid Iron
Venues + Dates -
Glasgow
The Briggait Market
31 Jan 02 - 9 Feb not
Sun at 8pm
Tickets in advance
0141 429 0022
Edinburgh
The Underbelly Cowgate
12
- 16 Feb at 8pm
Tockets in
advance 0131
473 2000
For
over +18s tickets on door 15 mins before or in advance from tele nos
for each city
Run Time - just under 2 hrs but feels like a lot less
Reviewer - Thelma Good
Joyous, sureal, sensuous journey
Lust, love, dreams and cheese are fired together in director Ben Harrison's
adaptation of the novel Fermentation. Odissa a young writer arrives in
a French town starting to sizzle in the early heat of April. She watches
a fire eater in the square . Later in a cafe he rubs an ice cue over her
skin and she feels the stirrings of an inner fire. Performed in Glasgow's
former fish market the Briggait, this promenade performance transforms
its spaces, taking us not only to France but into the strange, potent
dreams which Odissa has.
Serge and Odissa are playful, taunting, sometimes tender lovers. Charlie
Folorunsho who plays Serge is tall and black, Cait Davis who
plays Odissa is small and white. Their physical difference underlines
both visually and metaphorically that a man, even someone a woman reaches
summits of desire with, is also still other. Davis's Odissa is
breathtakingly delicate as a woman whose sensuality retains near virginal
purity as she swells with new life. Folorunsho gives Serge a strongly
attractive dangerous surface, just hinting at Serge's inner immaturity.
Craving for cheese Odissa begins to swell like one. She returns repeatedly
to a cheesemonger, an older, wiser man who knows the world through his
cheeses. In the Cheesmonger's character Chris Craig has already
found depth, pathos and humour despite having only taken on the part just
before the production's delayed opening night. As the summer goes on Odissa's
dreams intensify and are wonderfully seen and, on occasion participated
in by us the audience. In these dreams appears the other woman Justine,
Itxaso Moreno her sensuality is darker, exotic yet frail.
Each character is complex and compelling, Harrison's cast give performances
to match, making Fermentation a joyous, sometimes baroque journey into
humanity's strong urges and the strangeness of dreams. It's theatrically
enthralling with finely varied music by Phillip Pinsky, the percussion
played live by Guy Nicolson. My only quibble is with a few clumsy props
in an overall well crafted production. That aside Grid Iron's creative
and technical team show their skills are fermenting and distilling into
the spirit of theatre where time means nothing. It's just like being deeply
satisfied by a great lover or a great cheese.
© Thelma Good 31 January 2002
I intend to see this production again when it goes to very appropriately
named Underbelly in Edinburgh.
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