A
Friend For Boltan the Lion
seen as part of the Bank of Scotland Children's
International Theatre Festival
Adapted by Erik Schaffler and Uwe Schade from
Klaus Lordon's book.
Company - Theater Triebwerk from Germany
Venue - Theatre Workshop, 34 Hamilton Pl, Stockbridge,
Edinburgh
Dates - Public performances 1 June at 2.30pm, 2 June at 12pm
and 3 June at 12:30pm
Tickets - From Traverse Box office 228 1404
Running time - 70mins approx including interval performed in
English for 5yrs+
Reviewer - Thelma Good
Two stories, two musical instruments and two actors tell two tales about
Boltan the Lion and the camel Moltan who comes to his oasis. The stories
are told using saxaphone and cello with the actors playing and being
their characters at the same time. There's a desert fox and several
others as well as Boltan and Moltan but there isn't enough substance
in the stories to sustain this length of show.
I wished they'd adapted to a tighter 30 to 45 minute length by collapsing
the two stories into one. Children are very intolerant of theatre that
isn't tight enough, it loses them and they tend to fidget. When I saw
Boltan the mainly schools audience became increasingly restless. Working
with a wordy script in a foreign language and the Theatre Workshop space,
with it's steeply raked seating adds to the shows difficulties making
good contact between audience and performers difficult to achieve
©Thelma Good, 28th May 2001
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