| |
Theatre listings >
Tally's Blood
- Tour.
Playwright - Anne Marie Di Mambro.
Director - Ken Alexander.
Designer - Karen Tennant.
Lighting Designer - Simon Wilkinson.
Company - Byre and Borderline Theatres Co-production.
Cast - here.
Venue - Byre Theatre St Andrews
www.byretheatre.com
01334 475000 Abbey Street or down lane from South Street.
Dates - revived
in July 2003 (after touring Spring 2003).
Preview 2 July at 8pm.
3 - 26 July Mon to Sat at 8pm with matinees on 12,19 &
26 July at 2.30pm.
Seen to review at Byre St Andrews when first mounted in February
2003.
Run Time - 2 hours 20 mins including one interval.
Reviewer - Thelma Good.
Odd production details.
As we wait on the brink of conflict in 2003 this play could be a lesson
from the past. It starts in the years leading up to the Second World War
when settled Scottish Italian communities had their businesses attacked,
then aftermath their men returned from Canada where they were sent as
enemy aliens and concludes in 1956 Scotland and Italy.
The two central performances, Joanne Bett and Jim Webster, are memorable
as Lucia, a mix of spoilt brat and kind, rather purposeful girl, and her
Scottish friend Hughie, a boy who has lost his father. Lucia's childless
Aunt Rosinella, Annette Staines, is a cussed individual who you
want to shake. At times with Rosinella's rants and Lucia's sulks it can
feel like an animated cartoon but Webster, Robin Cameron
as Massimo, her serious, wise husband, help to balance the production.
While Alan McHugh's lazy and filching Italian father with Massimo's jacket
already on his shoulders and eyeing Massimo's shirt provides ironic comic
relief.
There are some odd production details. Rosinella, wary of too much mixing
between themselves and the Scots, has a pronounced Scottish accent despite
not being born here. The townsfolk's raiding of the ice cream shop lacked
any sense of danger. And the set. It was a split set, one side showing
the back shop with the counter visible beyond a door curtain, on the half
a stair and walls represented the shop store room and the exterior of
the house in Italy. Yes it is another stage where the designer has removed
an essential dynamic from the production - the centre of the stage.
The play has humour and flashes of deeper matters but it skirts round
the side of things rather than go for the throbbing, aching heart of them.
It's a technique that works better on TV and film than in the theatre,
as do the sometimes very short scenes. Tally's blood is a Scottish name
for the too sweet sauce which topped cones for an extra few pence. This
revival has the lovely observed and acted youthful friendship between
Lucia and Hughie but like the Tally's Blood of the title its flavour is
more sickly berried than the thrilling bitter sweet tingle of crushed
raspberries.
© Thelma Good 28 February 2003. - Published on EdinburghGuide.com
Cast:
Annette Staines - Rosinella Pedreschi, Robin Cameron - Massimo Pedreschi,
Joanne Bett - Lucia Ianelli, Alan McHugh - Franco Pedreschi & Luigi
Ianelli, Jim Webster - Hugie Devlin and Shonagh Price as Bridget Devlin.
Tally's Blood Byre & Borderline co-production.
Spring 2003 Tour begins.
27 Feb at 7:30pm. St
Andrews Byre Theatre 01334 475000.
28 Feb - 15 March 2003 at 7:30pm not Suns St Andrews Byre
Theatre 01334 475000.
Matinees 5, 8, 12 and 15 March at 2:30pm St
Andrews Byre Theatre 01334 475000.
17 & 18 March at Ayr Borderline Theatre 01292 611222.
20 March at Livingstone Howden Park Centre 01506 433634.
21 March at Greenock Arts Guild Theatre 01475 723038.
22 March at Dumfries, Theatre Royal 01387 247780.
24 March at Motherwell Theatre 01698 302999.
25 March at Castle Douglas Lochside Theatre 01556 504506.
27 & 28 March at Musselburgh Brunton 0131 665 2240.
29 March at Kilmarnock Place Theatre 01563 554900.
31 March at Inverness Eden Court Theatre 01463 234234.
1 - 3 April at Glasgow RSAMD 0141 332 5057.
4 & 5 April at Cumbernauld Theatre 01236 732 887.
8 & 9 April at Dundee Rep 01382 342611.
10 & 11 April at Stirling MacRobert 01786 466666.
12 April at Dunfermline Carnegie 01383 314000.
Tour ends.
Theatre listings >>
|
|
