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| Edinburgh : A&E : Theatre: Reviews |
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Theatre listings > Gagarin Way Burke's brilliant debut impresses more at re-viewing. Gagarin Way's proving a long street. Having caused a ticket jam, turning the Traverse box-office into a cul-de-sac for returns queues at last year's Fringe Festival, it went on to an extended London run and healthy audiences in the National's Cottesloe Theatre. Now it's finding its feet in the West End. Though the Arts is geographically dead-centre West End, it's a small venue and not the purely commercial venture usually found there. For Edinburgh audiences, think - very roughly - of the Church Hill Theatre plonked down somewhere along Lothian Road. True, Cottesloe audiences fell off around Christmas, but then, Gagarin Way isn't your happy family outing sort of play. The dialogue's abrasive, the issues serious and the denouement bloody. It's also seriously witty. This goes beyond the dialogue; there's humour deep in the whole set-up. Michael Moreland's security guard is the least secure, or tough, character going; even John Stahl's kidnap victim laughs at him derisively. There are laughs in balaclavas and bullets, lack of. And there's a neat let down when the villains find out where their international victim actually comes from. In fact, if there's one difficulty with the play, it's that the first hour is so funny - Burke knows just how to let tension spring loose in wildly comic bathos - the last part of this 95 minute play demands most concentration just when minds are likely to be looking to release their mental hold on the ideas that are coming come fast and very furious. But hold on - it's worth it. The real horror's in the final revelations of what's been behind what's been going on. Billy McElhaney's Gary may think he's mounting a political protest by kidnapping a globalising bigwig - McElhaney's features rubber into surprise, triumph or puzzlement as he tries to make his way into the mind of capitalism's representative on the scene. But his co-conspirator Eddie's nihilism has no political content. Violence and murder are pure fun for him. Michael Nardone's young hardman has a contrastingly expressionless face. With him, threats come through space-invading proximity or a sudden steel in the voice. Cast newcomer John Stahl still seems a bit generalised, his ageing, tousled
executive wearily calm at the prospect of never having to mow his Surrey
lawn again. But John Tiffany's production still stings as it sings and
Neil Warmington's set encapsulates the soulless prison that corporate
business makes of the world and its workforce. Review of the Premiere night's performance
at Traverse in August 2001with originial cast Theatre listings >>
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