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| Edinburgh : A&E : Festivals : Edinburgh International Festival |
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Week One 13 - 19 August.2 productions open in Week One.Troilus and Cressida has the world renowned and EIF favourite Peter Stein directing for the EI\fand Royal Shakespeare Company. This is the year the RSC is producing all Shakespeare plays in new productions by a variety of acclaimed and interesting directors and companies. The play explores infidelity against a background of war, politics and double standards. Performed in English it will run at the King's Theatre from 14 to 15, 17 - 21 and 23 - 26 August at 7pm with Matinees at 1pm on 15, 19, 24 and 26 August. Performance length approximately 3hrs 30 mins. Realism will have Anthony Nielson and his cast working on his take of what the aim of life is. The Wonderful World of Dissocia staged by much of the same creative team received five Critics Awards for Theatre in Scotland (CATS). The omens for this one are good. Performed in English. It's a short run so catch it at the Royal Lyceum Theatre 14 - 19 August at 7:30pm with matinees on 17 & 19 August at 2:30pm. Running time to be advised. Week Two 21 - 27 August.One new production opens this week and one continues.Long Life from The New Riga Theatre, (Latvia) brings a no dialogue play with immense storytelling capacity which follows one day in a communal block in Riga and the elderly and retired persons who live there. Directed by Alvis Hermanis, a newcomer to EIF, it is performed without dialogue. Performances 23 August - 2 September at 7:30pm, except 29 August at The Hub The continuing show is, at the King's Theatre, Troilus and Cressida until 26 August. Note that on the 22nd of August there is no EIF theatre production though there is an opera and two dance productions, perhaps next year the programing will ensure there is something theatrical available every day. Week Three 28 August - 3 September.Two new productions open this week.Opening at the Royal Lyceum Theatre on the 29 of August American Repertory Company with The Three Sisters by Chekov and directed by one of Europe's most influential directors Krystian Lupa. Three sisters yearn to go to Moscow and then a garrison arrives in their town. Can they find happiness now? Performed in English. 29 August - 2 September at 7pm Matinee 31 August & 2 September at 1pm. While opening on the 30 August is the last of the five theatre productions, Platform at the Royal Lyceum Theatre. Director Calixto Bieito has a reputation for intense, high risk drama, coupling his energy with his adaptation of Platform by Michel Houellebecq will ensure the novel's tale of sex exploitation, passion and self discovery will be an adult production. Prepare to be stirred. This is performed in Spanish by Companyia Teatre Romea, Barcelona with English supertitles. Official Festival Theatre 2006 - What Thelma thinks.After last year's 13 plays, 8 in double bills, some may feel short changed by only five plays in the whole programme. McMaster has brought back many of his most successful invitees, so it is a strong if small programme. It doesn't stack up against the variety and numbers of the music programme but music is closest to McMaster's heart and has always been the backbone of the this particular festival. Perhaps under the new director, Jonathan Mills, despite his music career - he is a composer - the theatre programme will expand more along the lines of McMaster's 2005 theatre programme. He is currently the Vice-Chancellor's (Professorial) Fellow at the University of Melbourne, director of the Alfred Deakin Lectures and an Artistic Advisor to the new Melbourne Recital Centre & Elisabeth Murdoch Hall. His previous posts have included Artistic Director of the Melbourne International Arts Festival, the Melbourne Federation Festival, the Melbourne Millennium Eve celebrations and the Brisbane Biennial International Music Festival. As a composer he is regularly commissioned in Australia and increasingly in Europe and the UK. His composition Sandakan Threnody for solo tenor, choir and orchestra won the Prix Italia in 2005. But for McMaster's last EIF theatre programme the chance to see Stein, Lupa, Nielson, Bieito and Hermanis strut their stuff means quality with a possible total cost of under £100 for reasonable seats, less for selected performances for under 18s and full time students. Check out the standby tickets after 1 August for other concessionary groups and Youth Tickets or Turn up and Try It Tickets, (not for Hub performances or Fireworks concert), both available for selective performances on the day, see EIF website for details. It's a programme that contains potential danger in Bieito's and Nielson's productions, though both director-creators have delivered fine work at past Festivals. I do look forward after McMaster's long tenure as director to a different and younger person's take on what is the top quality mix that should storm our senses in August 2007. He may bring us more from the Pacific rim and from newer emerging artists rather than largely tried and tested masters. But he could argue that the EIF principle aim is to gather to together what will be the creme de la creme from the best in the year. I'd welcome at least that he brought us a more varied quality fare, McMaster did tend to return to the same old names rather too often resulting in us seeing the same directors, or the umpteenth production of say, The Seagull, in too few years. Every year the Fringe brings a clutch of stand out professional productions which manage to retain a raw, fresh edge to their performances. Finding them amongst 800 plus productions in 2006 will be a challenge. The EIF curated shows can mean you're guided to potential theatrical gold but I have to say for some, me amongst them, there's a glorious exhilaration in encountering real 24 carat productions unaided in converted theatres, surrounded by an audience who are realising too they've found the hot show using their own nose for talent. I look back across McMaster's time and recall some extraordinary thrilling productions, some bizarre, underwhelming and some solid but not exciting. I liked his choices most when he brought something with an element of risk from a fairly experienced creative, something which received the Festival's ability to fund ambition and with a loose rein letting them realise their best. I salute his honesty about his first love being music but it recent years, despite some duff choices, he has also brought some superb world premieres, in particular David Harrower's Blackbird directed by Peter Stein and Anthony Nielson's The Wonderful World of Dissocia. © Thelma Good June 2006 - Published on EdinburghGuide.com Edinburgh International Festival 2006. Their website Booking opens for all by post, phone,fax counter and online on 8 April 2006. Pat Napier's EIF Opera, Dance and Music Preview Back to the EIF homepage |
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Edinburgh
International Festival
