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Theatre listings >
Word for Word
- Tour and World Premiere.
A Tramway Dark Lights Commission.
Creative Team
Writer - Linda McLean.
Director - Nicholas Bone.
Designer - Mark Leese.
Composer - Dee Isaacs.
Lighting Designer - Paul Sorley.
Movement Director - Marisa Zanotti.
Voice Director - Ros Steen.
Company - Magnetic North.
Cast - here .
Tour Dates and Times - here .
Seen to review at Traverse Edinburgh.
Run Time - 1 hours 50 mins no Interval.
Reviewer - Thelma Good .
In need of a dramatic compass.
In a flat in a city lives an very ancient woman, AnnMartha, which confusingly
I heard as Aunt Martha. Confusingly because it's hard to work out what's
going on in Word for Word, stuffed with oddly related people, symbols
and little content and the programme notes just add muddle. The production
pauses frequently for movement sections, only very few of which add to
the play, most of the rest drag the production to a near halt and are
a tedious waste of time.
The aged woman is like one out of the story books walking like a twisted
old bird and then, in one of the most memorable moments, twirling in the
arms of Nolen, moving like a being of pure spirit. Linda Kerr Scott's
AnnMartha is immensely watchable even when she is in repose. She is the
last speaker of a language, so we are told and yet Oona, Nolen and Marja
all seem to understand her, and Marja is verbally learning the stories.
Echoing frail disjointed bloodlines of these people, where connections
are never straightforward, the play increasingly irritates with its careless
illogicality. It's the fine acting and some sparky dialogue which hold
the interest despite the production's perverse delight in periodically
draining dramatic tension out.
The dying language is rendered as a form of Scots. It might have been
an interesting direction but like so many of Word for Word's ideas and
themes it is underdeveloped and sits awkwardly like a roughly stitched
patch.
The set of the room has a boarded floor, from its doorway a rough fringed
V-shaped gap is cut into it, exposing the rubble below. The war camera
man, taking a quiet job for a change, comes to film the old woman he stumbles
in the rubbled void. Only he has this problem, the rest avoid the gap.
This again is symbolism strewn thoughtlessly so you trip, symbols work
best carefully placed for clearest resonance.
The result of considerable artistic collaboration, the production suffers
from not pointing up clearly what it wants to communicate. The actors
do an amazing job with this flawed material but the creative team in this
production are in need of a dramatic compass to find their Magnetic North.
© Thelma Good 26 March 2003. - Published on EdinburghGuide.com
Cast - Nolen (aged 41) - Lewis Howden, Ben (aged
35) - John Kazek, Marja (aged 17) - Helen McAlpine, Oona (aged 37) - Linda
Duncan McLaughlin and AnnMartha (aged 107) - Linda Kerr Scott.
Musicians - Soprano Sax - Matt Smith, Drums/ Percussion - Peter
Vilk, Double Bass - Adrian Bornet, Cello - Robin Mason and Piano - Dee
Isaacs.
Tour Details of Magnetic North's production
of Word For Word.
14 -15 March
at 8pm Glasgow Tramway 4 0845 330 3501.
22 March at 7.45pm Irvine Harbour Arts Centre 01294 278381.
26 - 29 March at 7:30pm Edinburgh Traverse 1 0131 228 1404
1 April at 7:30pm Paisley Arts Centre 0141 887 1010.
Tour Ends.
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