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Theatre listings >
Purple
- World Premiere.
Playwright - Jon Fosse.
English Text Adaptor - David Harrower.
Director - Colin Bradie.
Designer - Claire Halleran.
Lighting Designer - Jeanine Davies.
Company - Lyceum Youth Theatre Company EdinburghGuide's LyT
page.
Cast - here.
Dates and Times - here.
Purple opened at the Traverse, went to Det
Apne Teater, Oslo Norway 20 - 24 March and then 14 June in the Shell
Connections Regional Showcase at the Royal Lyceum Theatre and then
at the National Theatre London 16 July as part of the Final Showcase.
Also to be at Diverse Attractions 19 - 23 August as part of the Edinburgh
Fringe.
Seen to review at Traverse Theatre Edinburgh in February &
also seen at the regional showcase in June.
Run Time - 50 mins no Interval.
Reviewer - Thelma Good.
Painful edge of intense, uncomfortable silence.
Growing up is hard, Jon Fosse's Purple takes us right back there. To
the awkward silences as we grope to talk, really talk, to people our own
age who are just as confused and bewildered as we are.
The Boy enters the cellar under an abandoned factory with The Girl. It's
there he and three other boys meet to play..... something - he says it's
not music. He has a lead guitar and he's even persuaded one of them to
buy a drum kit. They're all going to practice there tonight but he's brought
her down early, a girl who isn't part of the band.
Fosse and Harrower's translation gives the cast a bare, sparse text where
the silences and the body language tell far more. It's a very demanding
piece requiring actors who take us more than once to the deliberate painful
edge of intense, uncomfortable silence. It's hard even for fully trained
adult actors to do this. This youth theatre's directors and these five
young actors show notable understanding of pace and understatement.
In the central characters, The Boy struggling with grief, The Girl trying
to relate to the proto-men in the teenage boys and the erupting-in-violence
Drummer, Fosse gives just enough to understand and intrigue. Ben Clifford,
Linzi Campbell, and Michael Argyle rise to the challenges
of this. As a reason for getting fine writers to write for young casts,
this play and production demonstrates we should never underestimate what
the young can understand and do.
The young, still in college, designer, Claire Halleran has also risen
to her challenge. She's given the production a set which concentrates
the action into a cramped space, echoing the confined lives we make our
young inhabit.
© Thelma Good 20 February 2003. - Published on EdinburghGuide.com
Brief follow up review of June Regional showcase performance -
This production has grown even more producing performances which one very
experienced theatre expert commented on to me as the best theatre performance
he had seen for a long while. The Singer, Steven Croal and The
Bass Player, Ellis Thornton have developed in their smaller roles
so that the whole production of this challenging play hums even more with
talent and superb pacing.
NB You can see it in London 16 July at the National Theatre or
in Edinburgh at Diverse Attractions 19 - 23 August at the 2003 Fringe.
Review of Jon Fosse's Play on EdinburghGuide Girl
on A Sofa seen at 2002 Edinburgh International Festival.
NT | Shell International Connections Produced by the National Theatre,
Connections was established ten years ago in response to a widespread
demand for challenging new plays for young people to perform. It is an
annual event with new plays from national and international playwrights
especially commissioned or chosen by the National Theatre. They are designed
for 11 -19 year old casts and vary in size of cast and come in a wide
variety of styles.
Youth and school theatre groups from all over the world who can perform
plays in English can enter. They choose one of these scripts to perform
in their local area and at a regional showcase. Following all the showcases
it is announced which production of each play goes to London to be performed
by the selected group at the National Showcase on a stage in the National
Theatre London. For more details visit the very informative Shell
Connections website.
The plays will be published by Faber.
Cast:
The Girl - Linizi Campbell, The Boy - Ben Clifford , The Drummer - Michael
Argyle, The Bass Player - Ellis Thornton, and The Singer - Steven Croall.
Dates of Purple production from Lyceum Youth Theatre.
20 - 22 February at Traverse Theatre Edinburgh.
20 - 24 March at Det Apne Theatre, Oslo, Norway.
14 June at Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh, (This performance is part of
the Shell Connections
Regional Showcase)
16 July at London National Theatre at part of the final Showcase.
19 - 23 August at Edinburgh at Diverse Attractions at the 2003
Fringe.
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