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| Edinburgh : A&E : Festivals : 2002 : Official Festival |
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EIF Review
The Girl on The Sofa - World Premiere Company Co-production Edinburgh International Festival and the Schaubuhne am Lehniner Platz Berlin Venue Royal Lyecum Theatre Address Grindlay St off Lothian Rd Reviewer Thelma Good In the programme notes Jon Fosse says, "Theatre is always for you ....... It's about listening." Katherine Mendelsohn, Literary Associate of the Traverse Theatre, also adds in the same programme that the Traverse in commissioning Jon Fosse to write this play in Norwegian and pairing him with David Harrower (Knives in Hens and Kill the Old, Torture The Young) to provide a Scots English dramatic translation, the aim was "recreating the vital signature rhythm and musicality of Jon's language". Listening to this script is what Thomas Ostermeier didn't do. When you read the published script in Scots English the musicality and rhythm do ring out strong and true, but in casting solely English actors, fine though they are, this important element of Harrow's version and Jon's original is completely lost. It's unfortunate that the Traverse could not mount this premiere of the script they originally commissioned, if they had that intention could have remained intact.
And what is it about? The Woman who paints though no one wants her pictures, her younger self, her older Sister, their often away on the high seas father, their Mother and the Man the Woman is involved with. Also in the play are the Sister Older and the Father Older, the play slips between present and past sometimes interwoven in the same scene, reality echoed by recollection. The Mother is the cause of their Father's final prolonged absence. The play's two time frames are in the Woman's childhood and a present occurring as the Mother, now unseen and unvisited by the Woman but visited by the Sister Older, is dying. It's a painful story of how things in childhood can shape our futures even if we don't want them too. In taking Fosse's play and directing it so one is so conscious of the director's force and not the playwright's words, which at times were hard to hear and comprehend, snipped into as they were by dramatic tricks, Ostermeier is a fine example of director's theatre. But if you like a well balanced production, where each nuance of a beautiful, pared script is given light and drive by actors allowed to be, rather than animated puppets, this production will probably not be for you. I came out feeling that the script potential searing beauty had been flattened by the director's own controlling vision. I highly recommend the script which can be purchased at the theatre during the run and also through bookshops from one of Britain's specialist Drama publishers, Oberon Books . Ostermeier's directing debut at the EIF was of Marius von Mayenburg's Fireface in 1999. Runs 12 - 17 August at 19:30, 15 & 17 August at 2:30pm Text of this play as well as other texts of Fosse's plays are published by Oberon Books © Thelma Good 13 August 2002 |
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