Rating
Guide
None = Unmissable
= Unwatchable
Hamlet
Drams
Venue Old St Paul’s Church & Hall (Venue 45)
Address Jeffrey Street
Reviewer Colin Donati
This is a ‘Hamlet’ as it will not often be seen - a Hamlet ‘through
the looking glass’ as it were. The slight distortions in the familiar
names quite rightly signal that these are not to be the versions of
the characters as we are accustomed to them. The programme notes claim
that it is all based upon precursors to the Hamlet ‘play-text’. Apart
from being cut to its bare bones, there are a good many interesting
twists and surprises that it would be wrong to outline here. The overall
this Birmingham University Guild of Students production is relatively
uneven and the acting skills of the cast vary. But it has its moments
of effect. The last section in particular is interesting for its naive
energy. Moving in a broad sweep from the grave scene through to the
final swordfight, we get such a rough, truncated, broadly-sketched version
of the original shape that the effect is quite fresh and striking.
Runs till the 26th, at 14.40hrs.
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Hang
the DJ/Doin' Favours
Drams
Venue Rocket @ Theatre Arts Centre (Venue 16)
Address 10 Davie St
Reviewer Thelma Good
The first play is very funny, has a great mushies (magic mushrooms for
the uninitiated) sequence, and some great vocals circa The Smiths. The
second has a darker tone and is contemporary. Both are written by Jim
Clugston who can create great male parts, though I felt his female ones
were not quite so well formed. This new Scottish company have brought
a strong cast to these plays, especially in John Austin, who has a great
voice and superb physical presence and movement, Brian Ferguson and
Kenny Stuart.
The set designs, by Valerie Clugston, particularly in the first one
work very well. The three directors, the aforementioned John and Jim
and Rosie Davidson, did a good job also. The first play probably could
have second act, I hope Jim will write one. It was well worth missing
the last bus for. Keep an eye out for this company, they do interesting
work, and they know how to act with their bodies, bit unusual in Scotland.
Till 26th
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History
of Communism as told for the Mentally Ill
Dram
Venue Gateway Theatre (Venue 7)
Address Elm Row
Reviewer Colin Donati
The Festival is nothing without cultural exchange and exciting and surprising
visits from all parts of the world. The Eugene Ionesco Theatre bring
this new play over from Moldavia - a savagely comic, rowdy and almost
incoherent indictment of political hagiography. We are in the Moscow
Central Mental Asylum on the eve of Stalin’s death in 1953. Writer Yuri
Petrovski has come to extol the History of the Soviet system. All that
reigns is an anarchy of delusion about Stalin’s greatness. Not even
the black-fisted autocratic hospital Director is truly in control. Each
mention of Stalin’s name is greeted with ecstatic paroxysms of adulation.
The visit proves too much for patients and staff alike. In such plot
as there is, what is already apart at the seams - comes further apart.
The inmates, move freely amongst the audience for most of the course
of the action. Each has their own pathetic story which they are likely
to address to individuals in the audience intimately, over and over.
There is the Patient Who Met Stalin, the Patient Who Loves Stalin, the
Patient Who is the Mother of Stalin, and so on. Be prepared to have
a battery pressed politely into your palm for no very good reason.
Expect to join in with the throwing of paper planes after hearing what
was probably a symbolic speech likening Socialism to a perfect aircraft
- though nothing is quite certain. The lighting throws the moving shadows
of the performers deep into the recesses at either side of the auditorium
and through the clean white bars on the open stage.
The whole effect is of a dark circus. As for the overall message past
the simple black comedy, I wonder if this isn’t perhaps in danger of
throwing the baby out with the bath water. Perhaps anti Stalin expressions
are not so much of a cliche in the post Cold-War East as in the West.
But even so, the play’s focus on the Stalin era is in danger of appearing
so exclusive as to bar any impression of how it might be relevant to
the present.
Nonetheless, this is a truly strange and unsettling piece of theatre
which twists the emotions in most unexpected ways. Surrounded by such
insanely sentimental grotesqueries, curious heartfelt warmth can’t help
manifesting as one of the ‘accidentals’.
Runs till the 21st (not 16th) at 16.00hrs
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Hugh Miller
Drams
(Good)
Venue Diverse Attractions (Venue 11)
Address Lawnmarket
Reviewer Colin Donati
Hugh Miller (1802-1856), the Cromarty-born stonemason, theologian and
man of letters, is recognised to this day as being one of Scotland’s
most eminent thinkers and writers, possibly most remembered as a man
who struggled to reconcile his faith with his understanding of geological
time. The story of his death has always been a troubling one. Mind increasingly
debilitated by a little-understood illness, he was driven to commit
suicide in his Edinburgh home just before Christmas 1856.
Stewart Conn’s powerful one-man play - one of the hits of the 1988 Festival
- has been given a welcome post-devolution revival by Tweed Theatre,
and the intimate ‘drawing room’ atmosphere of this Lawnmarket venue
in the heart of old Edinburgh is an almost perfect setting. Conn’s writing
traces the gradual disintegration in his subject’s thought with great
skill and paradoxical beauty. It is the night of Miller’s suicide and
we meet the man in his study as he reflects back over his life. Immediately
we are introduced to the hallucinatory side of his consciousness - his
‘Highland’ side perhaps - recollectiong the childhood vision of a disembodied
arm. But very quickly the language ‘corrects itself’ to reflect Miller’s
own public style, balanced, endlessly fascinating and intellectually
robust.
This is the Scot rightly respected in his day for his intellectual enthusiasm,
depth of insight and ability to express grand ideas yet still tell a
guid ferlie tale in equal measure. The role is a demanding one played
admirably by Scott Noble. The cracks in the presbyterian consciousness
soon begin to widen. The eminent Scot turns out to be a man tortured
by the gap between his ideal vision and the social realities of the
Scotland he sees around him. The mental journey has proved too much.
Finally we realise we are watching the tragically sorry spectacle of
a great mind wracked with guilt and paranoia driven to self-destruction.
In the end, the pressure of intellect with which Miller has produced
his prolific works has been bought at a price.
Runs until the 12th at 21.30hrs.
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If I Were Me
Drams No need at all
Venue Scotsman Assembly (Venue 3)
Address George Street
Reviewer Thelma Good
If I Were Me, written and performed by Gay Marshall is a delightful
way to spend an hour in the afternoon getting to know an sensuous American
actress in Paris, and where cellulite comes from. Gay Marshall is an
actress who lives on the stage with an intensity which makes her shine.
She is witty and deprecating about herself , Americans and the French.
And she gives us a fine variety of characters to watch.
Every so often she bursts into a well selected song, using a voice which
has a beautiful tone and warmth. She puts her audience at ease so much
that four late comers replied with out embarrassment to her comment
that she was late arriving too. And when the inevitable mobile phone
went off she dealt with it the best I have ever seen. I am in no doubt
that what I saw was acting but it was done so well, we forgot we were
seeing a show and thought we were in a marvellous real world. Go and
see it you won't regret it.
Look under A in the theatre section of the fringe guide by the way.
Every day till 28th.
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Josef
Drams
Venue The Netherbow (Venue 30)
Address 43 High Street
Reviewer Colin Donati
New Scottish writing on this year’s Fringe includes the premiere of
‘Josef’, an intense and moving new play by Raymond Ross. The time is
Scotland in the 1980’s and Josef is a Polish emigre resident here since
World War 2. We meet him as he is being held for questioning on suspicion
of shoplifting, an old man at the local Police Station adamant to maintain
his dignity. The local bobbies are more than ready to write off the
incident as a lapse of memory, but for Josef a point of honour seems
to be at stake and his obstinacy makes their job difficult. Though he
says nothing outwardly, the questioning stirs up more than ordinarily
uncomfortable memories and invokes a history completely outside the
experience of his Scottish interrogators.
A series of flashback memories and dream sequences take us back through
incidents in Josef’s life over forty years. We are launched back to
the Nazi occupation of Poland and the story of his narrow escape from
prison camp. We meet deceased members of his family, including his wife
Bridget who, he says, still watches over him. And we slowly piece together
the significance of the story of the attack in his shop in the 1970s
that almost left him dead. Why does he refuse all offers to re-open
the case? Theatre Alba’s studio production employs archive footage and
music which make the full context of issues clear.
The parallelism between present and past stories is subtle and entirely
eschews cheap polemics. The impact is not immediate. Allow time for
the full resonance of this play to sink in. Its overriding strength
is that it hinges first and foremost upon the psychology and dignity
of an old man who, against a history of infinite misunderstandings,
has preserved to the last a genuine affection and love for life and
humanity. As a warm and closely observed portrait of this time of life
alone, the play is a great success. But the way in which it eventually
shows us how the old ‘codger’ uses a relatively minor incident towards
the end of his life to achieve a deep-seated and appropriate retribution
for an enormous weight of injustice, makes it an immensely powerful
one.
Runs till 2nd Sept, at 20.15hrs.
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Kanawa
Drams
Venue Garage Theatre (Venue 81)
Address The Garage @ the Citrus Club, Grindlay Street
Reviewer Pat Napier
Grindlay
Street Garage has now become the venue for experiencing Japanese cultural
events on the Fringe. One particularly innovative show is being staged
at the Citrus Club. A group of Oxford students presents a unique music
theatre show which doesn't fit in to either the Japanese or the Western
tradition. Instead, it spans and draws on both traditions to present
a plot rooted in Noh Theatre and performed to an accompaniment of Western
electronic music.
Is Kanawa a Japanese Noh play with Western influences or is it a Western
play with Japanese influences? That's the conundrum. It is full of interesting
contrasts: a Medieval Noh plot, originally written by the Japanese master
Zeami but skillfully adapted by the producer/librettist to craft a play
with Shakespearean/Greek chorus overtones; the music mixes taxing but
lyrical operatic music for the Woman with an almost-kitsch Broadway
musical genre for the Husband and his New Wife; not-quite authentic
Japanese movement with standard Western movement and gesture.
In just under an hour, the tale of a wife spurned and rejected for a
younger woman, who turned to a magician for help in crafting her revenge
followed by the inevitable tragedy, is played out. The principals are
in Japanese costume while the pseudo-Greek chorus is in black Western
dresses and almost-Venetian masks. The music, written by the very talented
young Japanese composer Ryota Kojima, amalgamates traditional Japanese
music with jazz, rock and Broadway, all intertwined with modern operatic
techniques and played on the latest, highest tech electronic music-making
equipment.
This very talented company, all of them students serious about entering
the professional music and theatre worlds, has already won many plaudits.
Kanawa has undergone several refinements as they learn more about what
works in production and will, undoubtedly, be further refined. The tragic
end, for example, could be yet more dramatised but that may be just
my Western taste.
My conclusion is that Kanawa is definitely a Western play incorporating
Japanese influences, the balance being swung by the Shakespearen resonances,
the Greek-style chorus, the Western classical and jazz/rock fusion music.
A very clever intermingling of East and West.
Run ends.... 28 August
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Kassandra
Drams definitely not needed
Venue C Underbelly (Venue 61)
Address Under George IV Bridge, entrance on Victoria Street
Reviewer Thelma Good
This
battle ready production erupts into the Underbelly after a short prologue
given to us whilst tropical birds sing in the Vietnamese jungle. It's
1969. We're with the American marines and Frost, a war correspondent;
looking for a story. Played with energy and real commitment, these young
actors take this extraordinary exceptionally well formed script and
grip their audience with the beauty of the words and the intense emotions
which the extremes of life in a war zone exert on young men. The actors
are on top of you in the Underbelly. They speak words which sometimes
come out as rifle shots, it's an acoustically wonderful space for this
play. I have never heard gunshots in a theatre sound real, they do here.
You feel, you are there with them- In Vietnam, watching through the
jungle undergrowth, experiencing the underbelly of human life.
There is also humorous and clownish dialogue, very well drawn characters,
with a love story too. The writer Ivo Stourton, who also plays one of
the parts, has created a riveting drama full of wonderful language which
is immediate, written in strong searing verse. I have always wanted
to see a Shakespeare play which had never been seen before, seeing this
play is as close as I think I may ever come to it.
Stourton, in lines like "our route must bear, but sour journalist fruit"
has shot into the Shakespearian language of his script, contemporary
words such as LSD, Napalm and helicopter so the actors speak the lines
as though this language was their own.
With new young writers who can write with such understanding of the
form and beauty of words as this young man, there is much hope for the
future of English drama in this new century. I cannot finish this review
without mentioning that all the cast played with an amazing professionalism
and realism that was astonishing to behold, assisted greatly by the
superb direction of Hailz Osborne. I'm awarding this a Good Great without
a doubt!
Runs every day until 27th at noon EXCEPT RECENT CHANGE not 17th and
18th
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King
of Scotland
Drams
as its gey Scottish
Venue Scotsman Assembly (Venue 3)
Address 54 George Street
Reviewer Thelma Good
In
a witty script written by Iain Heggie, the King of Scotland is played
superbly by Brain Pettigrew. In a series of well shaped scenes we see
the character Tommy think he's become King, whilst living with Margo
his wife. The humour may be rather too Scottish, with too many political
points being made, for some in a Fringe audience. The afternoon I went,
it was noticeably the older Scots who were laughing the most at almost
every line.
Tommy's take on his world is vastly entertaining and he has a great
optimism. Based on Gogol's Diary of a Madman this play makes jokes at
the expense of the present Scottish politicians, calling Big Donald
"the English Government's Bum boy." Towards the end of the play that
I felt very protective of the foul mouthed Tommy as he lost more and
more his grip on reality. There are some wonderful lyrical lines about
terrible things, look out for the "sky towers of damp and mould" and
"the alleys of smack and temazipam." Listen out for the joke about Soutar
(the man with the buses).
Until 28th.
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