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Learning The Rules
of Chinese Whispers - World Premiere.
Playwright - Jan Natanson.
Director - Sandy Thomson.
Designer - Jan Davies.
Design Assistant - Ed Turner.
Composer/Sound Designer - Kenny McAlpine.
Composer - Alex Attwood.
Music Director - Alex Attwood.
Additional Soundscape Editing - Alan Peacock.
Company - Poorboy Company Website.
Cast - here .
Venue - Starts from The Crawford Arts Centre and goes to The Martyrs
Church Theatre and St Andrew's Museum, some standing for most of audience
at some points but seats for all at others. Those with mobility/standing
problems can contact The Crawford Centre on 01334 474610 for arrangements.
Ticket bookable from Byre Theatre until 7:30pm on 01334 475000.
Dates - 17 - 19, 24 - 26 June and 1 - 3 and 8 - 10 July at 8pm.
Run Time - 2 hours 15mins no Interval .
Reviewer - Thelma Good.
Accomplished debut.
When the mind starts to go, granddaughters get mistaken for daughters
and daughters for mothers and past and present cease to be seperate. Learning
the Rules Of Chinese Whispers takes an audience into this confusing state
using music, a variety of intestingly transformed spaces and very vigourous
and strong understandable Scots. All is encountered in a promenade performance
where the audience is well looked after as well as fed and watered.
The three very watchable actresses switch back and forth across the generations
of a family, in roles as the grandchild or even her great grandmother,
they all bring complex emotional depths to their several roles. Taking
place in a whole variety of spaces the scenes are accompanied by specially
composed music and instances of installation art as well as settings.
We get just scraps of stories, gradually the past history of the family
begins to be built up but like the game, Chinese Whispers and dissortions
and miscommunications occur. By the end not all is revealed, but enough
to guess to feel we know the pasts of these women some of it very painful.
We're in on the action a lot - as three sisters try to seduce their father's
assistant with the pleasures of their laundry or finding out what precipated
the father's death long after hearing of it. We're also in at the birth
of several babes, one in a grim farm court, another a beautifully celebratory
birth showered by blood red sweets. The three sisters run a sweetie shop
and cafe - do taste the tablet it's delicously homemade.
There are echoes too of fairy tales, Laura visits her increasingly confused
Grannie carrying a basket of goodies from her mother and a young girl
is forced to partake in a ritual to find out about her future. The dreams
and nightmares of childhood and declining years are laced through as well
as those of the middle years. The three sisters may have given up on men
as the solution but still enjoy them as we watch, actors and audience
together in a space hung round with glamourous clothes and mirrors, on
one side a wardrobe the actresses enter through.
Jan Natanson's play could have been a tough one to stage in a conventional
space. By putting the audience inside and alongside the stories director
Sandy Thomson's production successfully dissolves our own grip on realities.
Designer Jan Davies' use of totem objects. a handbag on an altar looking
like the Monymusk Reliquary*, birthday candles suspended
in a pink cube or the whirl of kitchen utensils around a light along with
the use of music and soundscapes carry us within and beyond our experience
of families - their histories and myths.
It's perhaps a tad too long but the production's high standard of acting,
presentation and the best promenade support I've seen for some time keep
the audience interested. Like all familes you may not love it all but
quite a bit of it, amusing, moving or distrubing will remain with you.
Poorboy is a new company and this their first production shows they are
rich with talent and professionalism this country should nuture.
© Thelma Good 19 June 2004. - Published on EdinburghGuide.com
Monymusk Reliquary - A religious object, suposed
to contain saint's relics, carried by Scottish troops into battle in Mediaeval
times. It can be seen at The Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh today..
Cast - Agnes/Vina - Sarah Crabb, Veronica/Nellie
and Jeannie - Sharron Devine and Young Agnes/Laura - Kim Falconer.
Theatre Editor, Thelma Good's e-mail is
thelma@edinburghguide.com
Although every effort has been taken to ensure the accuracy of the
information presented in these pages, no responsibility can be accepted
for any errors or omissions.
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