Rating
Guide
None = Unmissable
= Unwatchable
Food Chain
Drams 
Venue Rocket@South Bridge Resource Centre
Address Infirmary Street
Reviewer Thelma Good
This play is witty and darkly satirically about the dealings within
multinational companies and aid agencies, and their dealings with third
world countries and Senate Committees. We see two characters spin and
respin and multiple spin "the facts" as the two stories unfold.
The play also bizarrely satirises the up beat counselling corporate
style of management when things go badly wrong in Madras, whilst in
a Senate Committee the aid agency spokesman smiles and sells his version
of the truth of what happened in Borneo when they got rid of the flies.
Two actors, Heath Corson and Soren McCarthy give dynamic performances
to what is potential a talking heads type play, keeping the audience
laughing aghast as the two characters make light of grim and dark realities.
The production at the moment is slightly too static and I yearned for
the guy at the senate committee to stand up to explain some of his data.
The structure is of two interweaving monologues, one talking to our
man in Madras on the phone and the other to the Senate Committee, and
it might also benefit from more interweaving than it has at present.
Kathleen Collins directed the play, she adapted two short stories to
form the play:- Our Man in Madras by Gert Hoffman and Top of the Food
Chain by T. Coraghessan Boyle.
I saw it on the first night with a small audience who did laugh quite
a bit, go along and give them a bigger audience when I think the play
will gather an awful momentum of its own. It captures extremely well
the ridiculous "look on the bright side" approach when disaster has
arrived.
Till 28th
| |
|
|
For
the Love of George
Drams
None required at all
Venue Greyfriars Kirk House (Venue 28)
Address Candlemaker Row, down the hill from Greyfriars Bobby
Reviewer Thelma Good
Quadrangle
Theatre are new to me but they certainly brought an excellent production
of a new play by Guy Jones, and an wonderful actor in Catherine Kirk.
With many theatrical images and superb movement in this one-woman play
we get to know a woman who seemed to be fine, amusing and a good mother.
She admits she goes for "men with wicked eyes" and we laugh.
And then she let us in to her real world. Using her laundry in lots
of surprising and astonishing ways we go with her and find out what's
really going on. Using humour and intense physical acting this play
helps me understand better why some women choose the lives they have.
Watch out for the best biology lesson ever.
Directors Jane Glennie and Helen King and all the Company are to be
congratulated on this play and production which shows what theatrical
magic and growth in human understanding can be achieve with a simple,
economical approach to theatre. It's all a one woman play should be
and more. Would that more theatre was like this.
Till 28th, not 14th or 21st.
| |
|
|
Frankenstein
Drams
Venue Komedia @ Southside (Venue 82)
Address 117 Nicolson Street
Reviewers Colin Donati and Will Dakota
CD:
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein tale is graphically and emotionally adapted
and updated by Company Collisions. A surreal nightmare vision which
draws obvious parallels with today’s ‘dreams’ of genetic science, but
isn’t polemical. WD. Many of the devices used are standard set-pieces
of physical theatre practice, but they’ve been powerfully deployed.
CD. Absolutely. The sound-track was excellent. WD. The vaguely S+M costumes
were well thought-out. Beautifully intimidating in contrast to the nakedness
of the monster, giving the effect that the monster is vulnerable throughout,
even as a murderer. If I have one criticism, it might be with the ending.
The piece started with movement and possibly should have finished with
movement too. CD. I’m not sure it mattered. WD. It didn’t. CD. The way
it opened questions without answers about the mysteries of birth and
death is the main impression it leaves me with. Threading Mary Shelley’s
experience of losing a child in child-birth is particularly disturbing.
And the corpses swinging from gallows - poetic and ugly at the same
time. WD The simultaneous fascination and horribleness of life from
corpses.
Runs till 27th (not 14, 21) at 22.40hrs
| |
|
|
Freelancers
Drams
on first night, maybe less later
Venue Komedia @Southside (Venue 82)
Address 117 Nicholson St
Reviewer Thelma Good
What happens to actors when they go off stage, does the job make them
not like other people? This play gives some insights into the alliances
and rivalries that may fester in the dressing room as actors are flung
together because they might fit their parts rather than get on with
the rest of the company. I saw this play on its first night when a fan
was left running all through the show and the programmes ran out, such
are the hazards for a first night audience and reviewer!
That night the pace was off, effect of the fan maybe, and what was potentially
quite a funny script went a bit flat until we realised we were supposed
to laugh, then it improved. Towards the end of the play, we discovered
that we were not watching the play we thought we were watching. I thought
this revealing moment happened far too late on and indeed the tension
in the last 15 or so minutes of the play were much more dramatic and
interesting than what had gone before. Though I did quite like the singing
and dancing, and the acting. It may improve.
Until 27th , times incorrect in Fringe programme, 21.25 till 22.30
| |
|
|
Further
Than the Furthest Thing
Drams None, the show is beautifully hypnotic
Venue Theatre Traverse (Venue 15)
Address Cambridge Street beside Usher Hall
Reviewer Thelma Good
Plays can transport you to places impossible to visit, and to feelings
you hide inside. This is a superbly, fine production of a marvellous
new play by Zinnie Harris. The direction by Irina Brown of these five
wonderful actors, Paola Dionisotti, Gary McInnes, Kevin McMonagle, Darrell
D'Silva and Arlene Cockburn. They all took us away to a remote imaginary
island where boats rarely come and no outsider stays. We listened to
the islanders talk in rhythms, with a lyrical speech pattern we have
never heard before. They moved differently too. Communicating simply
and directly with one another on an island where only two people have
left but come back again in recent times.
As we watched, their story unfolded faultlessly in front of us, giving
us the ability to understand how a isolated community copes with living
with only themselves to fall back on. They have a wisdom we do not,
for they always have to deal with life pragmatically. There is soft
humour in the play and sudden shocks too. On the night I went the audience
seemed to listen together and to react as one. Some changes were so
alarming we started in our seats in a community of spirit so committed
were we to the five people who lived and moved on the stage before us.
This is a profoundly moving play whose story you really must go and
see. I have not told you what happens, the play does that far better
than I could. The voice coach is Patsy Rodenburg, designer Nikki Turner,
Lighting Designer Neil Austin, Music Gary Yershon and Sound Engineer
Duncan Chave - indeed all involved gave top quality contributions to
this world class production.
Various times every day except Monday till 26th.
| |
|
|
The
Gambler
Drams (very
good)
Venue St Columba's (Venue 4)
Address Next to Edinburgh Castle
Reviewer Andrew MacNeil
Nicolai Gogol talked of the splendour in the Slavic soul. In this production
of Dostoyevsky's The Gambler by Oliver Emanuel physical and cantabilic
strands have been added to this dissection of it. Alexis, played by
Oliver Renton, brings some grace to the pivotal-and in some way the
only concrete role to the story of a man "fallen with force". The novel
written in four weeks to pay pressing bills traces the seemingly descent
of an immature character, in love, to addiction yet is a confirmation
of his life-force. In the play we hear "the English are (only) good
at charging interest". Still addiction and obsession, like Polina's,
for the slimy Frenchman De Grieux does drive us all. It is even comic.
In scene nine Grandmamma succumbs to the drug. Love, power, status even
proving your non-obsession these are all caught and thrown to the black
and red in this feisty production.
Runs until Sat 26th August 4.45pm, even dates only and two for one tickets
available at venue-well worth your while!
| |
|
|
The
Gimmick
Drams
Venue Traverse Theatre (Venue 28)
Address Cambridge Street beside Usher Hall
Reviewer Thelma Good
Dael Orlandersmith is the writer and performer of this solo piece which
is on in Traverse 1 late at night. In the course of an hour and half
we see Alexis and her friend Jimmy grow up within the confusing and
turbulent world of Harlem, New York. Set in the sixties and seventies,
Dael gives us a real flavour of those times and the grit and determination
it takes to make it. The Director is Andy Farquar and the company is
Scottish which is interesting.
And the Gimmick? It's a prostitute who turns a trick, or a shooting-up
kit for drugs or something or someone who is a fake. This play is not
a gimmick, it is shot through with bitter truth and heartening humanity.
And has a wonderful soft ending which is so hard to achieve truthfully
in theatre.
Until 13th.
| |
|
|
A
Good One is a Dead One
Drams
Venue C (Venue34)
Address Chambers Street
Reviewer Thelma Good
A very good script by new writer Ben Street with wonderful embodiment
of twelve characters by the amazing actor Fergal McElherron (last seen
here last year at Traverse in Mojo Mickybo. I particularly liked the
Mother and her lasagne. The single piece of set, a red office swivel
chair is used excellently.
But, and it is a big but, the space, the lower theatre at C venue, is
quite wrong for this play. In an intimate studio space this play would
fly. I hope we can see this play in the likes of Traverse 2, where it
would work wonderfully.
Until 27th not 15th
