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Theatre listings >
Smoking With Lulu.
First performed as Emphysema (A Love Story) in 1995 at the West Yorkshire
Playhouse, Leeds England.
Playwright - Janet Munsil.
Director & Designer - Kenny Miller.
Assistant Director - Carter Ferguson.
Lighting Designer - Stuart Jenkins.
Company - Citizens' Company in Association with Michael White and
Richard Jordan.
Cast - here.
Venue - Citizens' Theatre www.citz.co.uk
for internet booking 0141 429 0022.
119 Gorbals St .
Dates - Pay
What You Can Preview Wed 4 February 7.30pm
5 - 28 Feb at 7.30pm not Sun or Mons and Pay What You Can matinee
Sat 21 February 3pm.
Run Time 1 hrs 20 mins no interval.
Reviewer - Thelma Good.
Tynan and the luscious Lulu live.
Kenny Miller's designed the set with mirror floors, exposed bulbs and
shiny black PVC. In it moves the elderly Louise Brooks in a linen white
kimono, Kenneth Tynan thin and seemingly insouciant and a female wraith.
The wraith binds them together for three brief days, the character of
Lulu - Wenderkin's Lulu seen through Pandora's Box director Pabst's direction
and Louise's black helmet haired younger screen presence. Brooke was a
visual icon of the Twenties we still recognise.
His middle name really was Peacock - but despite her distinctive voice,
her flair with words or her 60's like approach to life and loves, she
is only remember for her silent movies. Ken and Louise could have been
a terrible duo, if he had been older or she younger. They both loved to
live for pleasure. But Kenneth Tynan, critic, first co-leader of the National
Theatre famed for saying the F word on telly met her when she was in her
eighties and he, thirty years younger, was already damaged by one of his
many pleasures smoking.
Janet Musil's play leaves some of this background unilluminated rather
lost in the shadows of the black and white world, but Simon Robert's
charismatic performance gives us a Tyan who feels realler than life in
the intimate space of the Circle Studio. If you ever wanted to met this
literary enfant trerrible get along to the Citz - his spirit is there
if not his flesh. So is Lulu's in a mesmeric embodiment by Sarah Lawrie
wearing a sexily arousing sucession of suspenders and corsets with the
signature curls on her facial cheeks and a bottom that invites caresses
and slaps. Only Freya Dominic's Louise lacks the lustre of the
astral plane. Paradoxically I feel if Louise had been portrayed more decript
and crone like, the sensual essense of even the older Louise would have
shone more interestingly through. Why are we so afraid of the attraction
of extreme years?
There are changes at the Citizen's but this production and the one down
stairs suggests fine acting will continue to be rightly paramount, while
the strong designs show the Citz trademark approach isn't yet to be rebranded.
It's highly effective but I hope someone is going to pick a play where
a striking different approach can be acheived. If the smoking ban in the
bar till the last performance of the night comes down is hard to handle
Smoking with Lulu will also provide you with some passive inhaling pleasure.
© Thelma Good 5 February 2004. - Published on EdinburghGuide.com
Cast of Citizen's Production of Smoking With Lulu.
Kenneth Tynan - Simon Roberts, Lulu - Sarah Lawrie, and Louise Brooks
- Freya Dominic.
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