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REVIEW ARCHIVE 2008 National Theatre & Handspring Puppet Company War Horse Olivier Theatre, London The team includes many well-known names in UK puppetry, including Mervyn Millar and Finn Caldwell. The intensity with which the performers worked was immense, from the masterful control of Joey, the horse around which the play revolves (controlled by various puppeteer-performers, who switch roles throughout), to the wonderfully charismatic piloting of a goose. The skeletal construction of the puppets meant that they displayed transparently the skill of their creators, Basil Jones and Adrian Kohler. The production was not without problems. Much of the acting was either overblown or dwarfed by the size of the Olivier. Parts of the story were too overtly telegraphed. But taken on its own terms this was gloriously, unashamedly melodramatic theatre on a grand scale, with enough muscular power and excitement to carry off its overt sentimentality. In sweeping movements, the show managed to convey both the horror of the First World War and the beauty of a love between boy and horse, and it was impossible to remain unmoved. Harry Werber
Pierre Rigal / compagnie derniere minute PRESS The Gate Theatre Where would art be without the sensational predicament of the uncomfortably small room? From the cell-like incubators of anguish in Bacon’s paintings, and the weird lounge of David Lynch’s rabbit sitcom, to David Blaine’s much-derided cubicle suspended above the South Bank, and, most terrifyingly, the invisible glass box within which the cheesy mime artist of popular imagination is permanently trapped: in all these confined spaces we recognise the airtight claustrophobia of the human condition. Rising gamely to the challenge of creating a dance-theatre work for the diminutive Gate, Pierre Rigal not only has the chutzpah to shut himself in an incommodious booth, he also compounds the nightmare by having the ceiling lower itself by degrees, until finally he’s pent in a virtual coffin. As a constantly ingenious exploration of one man and his diminishing kinesphere, Press showcases Rigal’s exceptional technical strength, his control and imagination, but also his coolness and evident self-regard. As an apparent expression of surveillance anxiety, it’s freaky and stylish, with a pin-sharp design by Frédéric Stoll. What finally disappoints about Press is its lack of rigour. Many of the crucial pressures of the scenario are relaxed or suspended at points so that Rigal can make more room in which to be clever. The connection with the audience is vague and inconsistent, and, like the whole piece, needs more thought to match the physical discipline. But Rigal is undeniably talented, and for a venue like the Gate to be commissioning work of this nature is frankly miraculous. Chris Goode
Peter Handke (trans. Meredith Oakes) The Hour We Knew Nothing of Each Other National Theatre, London Set on a stage-set of a town square, The Hour We Knew Nothing of Each Other is, in case you missed the tagline, a play for 450 characters with a cast of 27. We see their journeys across the square, or their brief activities within it, seldom seeing the same character twice. There is some sense of how much fun it must have been for Handke to write. Even if the play’s inventiveness is not itself a marvel, the breadth of the characters and the variousness of their inchoate narratives maintains a low threshold of interest and attention: a man furiously chases a girl, a woman in an evening dress walks slowly forward with a broad green leaf obscuring her face, someone dies. Unfortunately the cast don’t really cut it as physical performers. It’s all right when they’re doing the strange or extreme characters — when they have on distracting costumes — but elsewhere they don’t find truth in the everyday (with one exception: two strangers walk past each other and their hands brush…). The spirit of the piece isn’t invidious or false, but is held back by the obvious rigidity of its own choreography, a mismatch for the fluid possibilities it is trying, by example, to suggest. It is also too long: 1hr and 45mins and when near the end it tries to shift modes, stretching its few instances of surrealism out to encompass all the characters in a metaphorical landscape, it is without the grace or poetry to make that vision real. John Ellingsworth
Societas Raffaello Sanzio/ Romeo Castellucci Hey Girl! Tramway, Glasgow The opening image of Hey Girl! is mesmerizing: we see a heap of flesh-coloured material on top and dripping off a bare table. A dangling arm and hand suggest a human form, and through small movements a young woman emerges from the amorphous heap, shedding what seems to be a second skin. Despite the clinical white light the eyes struggle at first to perceive a human shape, as thick clouds of haze and the fleshy tone of the second skin and dripping plastic confuse it. The extreme slowness of her gradual appearance thus challenges the audience to make sense of the changing forms in front of them. Unable to change perspective or follow the urge to touch the image to clarify our perception, Castellucci captures our attention by gradually revealing more and more of her body. Sadly the expectations raised by the imaginativeness and strength of this first image are not fulfilled throughout the performance. Some of the images to follow, such as the violent beating of the woman by a group of men, seen only as anonymous shadows, can be interpreted even before they are fully presented and the slow, gradual built-up invites unfavourable comparisons to the copious use of theatrical smoke to reveal something utterly foreseeable. Sitting through these rather obvious images presented at a very low pace may not be entirely pleasurable, but at regular intervals the spectator is rewarded with further visual gems – in retrospect these impressions might last longer… Ursula Canton
Jerome Bel The Show Must Go On Sadler's Wells, London Jerome Bel has been carving his niche as a choreographer for over a decade, unpicking what it is to dance in a similar vein to Jonothan Burrows; or to Forced Entertainment in theatre. Therefore this recent retrospective at Sadler’s Wells is a welcome chance to catch work previously missed. The Show Must Go On (2001), like all Bel’s work, is simple in premise - 18 performers, 1 visible technician and a host of pop songs. Each pop song serving as a provocation for elementary actions and playful comments upon the stage space: darkness; very slowly, light on an empty space; multiple recreations of ‘the’ scene from Titanic, the singing of Yellow Submarine from the lowered orchestra pit of the Sadler’s Wells’ stage all feature as responses. We watch each one partly trying to guess Bel’s responses to each song and partly wanting to be surprised by the obvious choices he has made. The simplicity of this piece is one of its central charms, alongside the human frailty in his performers, all apparently non-dancers. It is paradoxically compelling, as we search for the subtle differences between the performers. In this simple approach Bel accomplishes what many companies still struggle to do, which is engage us directly and compellingly in the progress of the performance. Watching his work reaffirms the idea that there is no need for the myriad dance languages we possess, no need for embellishment or theatrics and he does so though without self-indulgency or a sense of deadened experimentation. Most welcomingly he delights his audience, remembering that performance is something that happens between two sets of people: those who do and those who watch. Tom Wilson
Pina Bausch/Tanztheater Wuppertal Café Muller/The Rite of Spring Sadler’s Wells, London Two classic pieces from the 1970s choreographed by the first lady of tanztheater, Pina Bausch. First up is Café Muller , in which we are expecting to see Bausch herself perform, but due to ‘indisposition’ (as it is says on the oh-so-innocent piece of paper we are handed with our programmes), she does not appear, which is a disappointment, it has to be said. The piece is a kind of trailer for subsequent Tanztheater Wuppertal work of the 70s and 80s. It’s a kind of ballet of the dispossessed: a distracted woman totters dangerously around the stage in high heels; dreamy and disconnected sleepwalkers in white silk robes forge paths across the space, creating sculptural shapes in interaction with the wooden tables and chairs; said chairs get pulled out, scraped along the floor, chucked around and crashed into heaps by a manic mustachio’d man; a woman throws herself into the arms of a man, he drops her, she does it again, he drops her again, they repeat and repeat, and speed up and speed up and speed up; there’s an offstage/onstage thing going on with a revolving door upstage behind a glass window, people disappearing and reappearing in an endless cycle of obsessive-compulsive actions. All good stuff, like a live film packed with marvellous moving pictures and of course the choreography beautifully enacted. But the problem is that Bausch’s work has been so influential on contemporary dance-theatre that in many ways the piece seems almost to be a parody of itself. This I realise is grossly unfair on the artist – she can’t help it that everyone has copied her – but I find myself (shockingly) a little bored – and longing to see some of her more recent work. The Rite of Spring (1975) seems to have stood the test of time better than Café Muller, probably because it is a ‘straighter’ piece of contemporary dance-theatre, developed at an earlier stage of Bausch’s career, and less reliant on the trademark gestural work that has become such a cliché of contemporary dance. Its connection to later pieces such as the aforementioned Masurca Fogo is in the beautiful use of the 30-strong ensemble, the balance between the strength of the group and the drive of the individual played with throughout. The power and beauty of so many bodies on stage! The constantly evolving patterns as dancers flock and separate, weave and flow, form alliances and oppositions! The geometric shapes that seem to speak to our souls: circles, lines, figures-of-eight, that appear then melt away! And like all her work, it’s a piece of visual art as well as movement theatre: the stage is covered with earth, the dancers dressed in crumpled cream silk with the only ‘prop’ a (menstrual) red diaphanous scarf that is used to coil and caress, restrain and liberate. It’s exhilarating stuff. It’s good to have the opportunity to see these early works, but when oh when will Bausch’s work from the past decade come to the UK ? The most recent piece we’ve had is Masurca Fogo (1998) which came to London five or six years later. There’s been another seven or eight productions since then, none of which have come to London , Edinburgh or anywhere else on these islands. UK producers and programmers, give us more! Dorothy Max Prior
Fabulous Beast James Son of James Playhouse, Oxford This, the third part in Michael Keegan-Dolan’s trilogy examining the changing social landscape of Ireland ’s Midlands , is a broad mix of song, dance and text. The premise rests on the events that happen when the eponymous James returns home for his father’s funeral, setting off a gradual disintegration of a small town’s social order. As a piece of narrative dance theatre this show ticks along at a cracking pace, carrying the audience’s attention and playing the story quite clearly and creating some entertaining moments. At times, though, the limited dialogue feels stilted, and is actually quite invasive amongst the highly charged and inventive duets Keegan-Dolan stages. Characters are titled as broad archetypes, and there is a flavour of Greek Tragedy in the events that come to pass. The piece seems to ask us to empathise with the characters, but it feels as if the characters are in need of a little more depth or truth to them if this is to be achieved. Daphne Strothmann and Cliodhna Hoey (as The Politician’s Wife and Woman from the East respectively) are the exception in this regard, with Strothman giving a number of nuances to her role, most notably in her sharply deployed physical rhythms, and Hoey finding the internal conflict her role faces as both wife to the local farmer and a mother to a child ‘back east’. The use of song lies closer to the musical than the oratorio nature of voice in some other physical theatres, unpicking themes or acting as choral soliloquies; though at points the lyrics come across as clumsy and overstate the case a little. This leads to moments where you feel as if something has been missed, moments that could lift the piece out of the workmanlike to the poetic. Tom Wilson
Spank Raravis …de terissa (…of Clay) National Review of Live Art Tramway, Glasgow Hosting the evening in a bright red dress, Caroline Smith is very charming and light hearted, step by step narration of a dance routine she is, due to an accident, unable to perform sets a light, playful tone. The childhood photos of her and her sisters in 80s attire, her ironic comments on the two girls aspirations as young dancers and the description of her mother’s unusual lunchboxes fit well into the realm of fond and sharply observed memories. At first this atmosphere of reminiscence seems to be wholly unconnected to the newspaper reports about the mysterious death of a young women in the same area of London that are presented on screen by an unsmiling and stony faced Caroline Spark, whose professional pose as a neutral and disinterested reporter would seem severe even in a news programme. As the two women begin to acknowledge each other, shared themes start to emerge and the apparent serenity of the memories gives way to a more troubling story. Merging different perspectives and bringing together private and public memories Spank develops from a familiar but highly entertaining evening of happy autobiography into a more challenging piece that asks spectators to weave together different threads of narrative. The structure of fragmented stories that reflect in different ways on a topic may not be new, nor are there surprising or entirely unexpected insights to be gained, but the high level of audience engagement required in bringing the different pieces together nevertheless make this performance enjoyable. …of Clay by Raravis (Andrés Corchero and Rosa Muñoz) is a visual and auditory challenge. Beginning in absolute silence, the performers develop their basic vocabulary of movements in slow motion. They walk as if drawn by a piece of string attached to different parts of their bodies, they bend their knees and crouch, and they modulate the shape of their bodies with their shoulders. All their movements are executed with a slowness that is hard to achieve in live performance, and a great part of my appreciation for the first minutes of their production stemmed from mere admiration of the body control necessary to achieve this. When the silence is interrupted by the bleeping sound of modems and internet connections, which develops into a sizzling that reminded me of high voltage power lines, initially the performers do not seem to react. But as it becomes more rhythmic and grows in volume their movements are combined into new patterns and seem to relate stronger to the soundscape created. The change from the apparently isolated presentation of simple movement and sounds into a dense and highly captivating dance that combines them in quick and varying order is so gradual that it cannot be attributed to any specific moment in the piece. Many of the following solos and duets of the performance use similar patterns of isolation and integration, simplicity and complexity, slow and fast. The seamless development of one into the other remains fascinating and captivating throughout. Ursula Canton
Pavel Douglas I Shot Dirty Den The Rondo, Bath Pavel Douglas is a jobbing actor and consequently his working life consists of the occasional telly, lots of voice-overs and, when times get really hard, dressing up as an alien and handing out leaflets. In this delightful autobiographical one-man show Douglas reveals that he played Gregory Mantel, the man behind the shooting of East Enders bad boy, Dirty Den. Years later Den mysteriously re-appeared and Mantel was effectively airbrushed from soap opera history. This is the central idea of this engaging show; it’s all about getting yourself into ‘the loop’, that elusive conveyor belt of talent from which directors choose their actors. Douglas himself was the son of a celebrated Polish actor who married a beautiful English actress. Their marriage broke down and Pavel was whisked away to Britain , never to see his father again. The subsequent search for his real identity makes lyrical and poignant theatre and the true-life pathos merges with the hilarious world of the luvvie to produce a captivating snapshot of the world of the almost quite famous. You should be able to catch this show at Edinburgh Fringe in August 2008. Meanwhile, try Wikipedia-ing ‘Gregory Mantel’ to learn more. Brian Popay Mossoux-Bonte Nuit Sur Le Monde Purcell Room, South Bank Centre Nuit Sur Le Monde is a triptych of ensemble pieces. A stated aim of the company is to create work that sits between dance and theatre (mime, perhaps!) and in this production, we certainly witness this. Part one saw a row of six figures against a wall. The movement is butoh-inspired: slow movements of arms, heads, legs that stay magnetically held by the supporting wall; movements that are often minimal but always charged with intent. Cocteau’s statues in an enchanted garden; marble carvings on a temple; the trapped bodies of Pompeii – it is easy to construct narratives around the images. Then suddenly, all six slowly sink down to end sitting on the ground and the stories change. Shaved heads, staring eyes in slumped bodies – refugees, concentration camp inmates, refugees, bomb victims huddled underground. A straightforward lesson in the power of movement theatre. Part two is in a rather different mood, with nods in the direction of Pina Bausch and tanztheater . We see a constant journey across the stage in a play on dressing and undressing, exposure and privacy, public and private space. Walking lines of bodies clothed in bathrobes which are taken off and placed on someone else’s shoulders in a constant wave of robbing and disrobing; a play on the meeting of bare feet with high-heel shoes; and a funny (in both senses of the word) final scene involving a pair of pulled-down knickers. It is all played out on a stage divided by gauze screens and hospital-style curtains on runners, perhaps in a suggestion of the place where the private body is most likely to be exposed in ways that that we have the least control over. Part three sees a return to the dimmed lights and dreamy mood of the first piece. The points of reference here are the heritage of Decroux and the French mime/movement-theatre tradition. A stunning opening shot gives us an ensemble of lit faces moving like seas creatures, tilting and swaying. As we grow accustomed to the low light, we notice that the group are all in party clothes – suits and satin frocks – and are all kneeling. It’s somehow a really eerie and unsettling image; it’s hard to say why. Because of the association between kneeling and praying, or kneeling and begging for mercy? Because their reduced height makes them look like a group of abandoned children? It is another reminder that telling stories through pictures creates rich and multi-dimensional narratives – oh, the power of mime! Dorothy Max Prior Duo / Montevideoaki / while going to a condition Barbican Pit Solo multimedia butoh streetdance performed to a bodiless electronic score; Umeda all in black, the screen behind him sometimes white and sometimes black and never anything else; bursts of aggressive strobe lighting. The first piece, Duo, was visually I suppose the most extravagant in its division of attention between Umeda and a blocky representation of himself appearing to be projected from live feed (most of the time) and put through various filters and effects. Some of these effects were arresting. I enjoyed the one where Umeda would undulate his hand and the avatar beside him would burst out in a swarm of pixels only to reassemble a second later; and another where his digital image magnified in correlation with a deep heartbeat. In this piece, and all the pieces, there was an exciting build-up of sounds and actions, a basic and seductive transition from stillness to movement, but it was difficult to see beyond this, and perhaps hard to know what Umeda asks of himself in the moment of performance. To be on time? To meet the incredible demands of synchronicity in the situation he has set himself? At first I thought that the work was conceived and executed from within a state of absolute control that hates chance and improvisation; but toward the end of the final piece — performed in low light with occasional concussive strobing — something happened that didn’t go on long enough that I’m quite sure what it was. In very broad terms, Umeda went out of control — violently twitching and snapping his head — but also for only the second time in the whole 70 minutes it seemed like his face was readable: some sort of complex joy that comes not from escaping limitation or control or tension, but from finding freedom within its strictness and self-effacement. I thought about it for a long time after. John Ellingsworth
Gecko The Arab and the Jew Lyric, Hammersmith The Arab and the Jew is about one of the most pervasive and intractable conflicts of our age. It’s also about the personal relationship between Gecko’s two collaborators Al Nedjari and Amit Lahav. However, what it is mostly actually about is creating a series of theatrical dynamic sequences of movement images draw from around these themes. And what sequences! Bodies falling slo-mo from an explosion (off); the inevitable Gecko gesture to cabaret in a perfectly executed vaudeville number; the recreation of an orange grove in which to dance; climbing a wall of the hands of the past. The company integrate sound, design, rhythm and physicality masterfully and with pleasing ingenuity. But that this is a triumph of form over substance is most vividly demonstrated in what hoped to be gentle puppetry sequences of a little girl (about to be killed in the explosion) hamstrung by the breathlessness and energy spilling over from its bookending ‘high octane’ scenes. The company liked the idea of including this motif – there’s no space to respect their material. This form of composition is deeply influenced by the expressive aesthetic of De La Guarda and suffers the same problems – the images are exhilarating but they don’t stack up. We can’t expect theatre to offer up answers that years of politics can’t find, but it is the responsibility of art, when approaching so straightforwardly such intensely political territory, to reconfigure our perspective. The forms of performance the company are playing with are so sophisticated, it’s disappointing to find that they don’t apply these skills to the development of what they’re saying, rather then simply how they’re saying it Beccy Smith
BlackSkyWhite Astronomy for Insects ICA The production had the quality of a dream, of complete unreality, from the opening of the show when into a cloudy stage fringed by tubes of light came a wheelchair occupied by a lifesize automaton, pushed by a weird masked creature. Both were in white, and white was, almost throughout, the dominant shade, except for the changing (vivid) colours in the tubes. I could detect no story, only episodes of super-controlled movement as exact as clockwork. The three performers, hardly humanoid, executed complicated sequences that were minutely choreographed. The movement drew on the style of popping and break-dancing, mostly in tiny jerky motions. The costumes recalled strange insects, or bats, or birds. The recorded soundscape started with the tropical chirruping of crickets or maybe tree frogs, but changed and expanded with each episode. Eventually one detected that the figure in the wheelchair was human, but it took a long time. She was superb: tall and supple, ghost thin, huge-eyed. Her name is Marchella Soltan. It seems she has been in the show for at least four years. The other two performers, hardly less skilled, were Andrey Oleynikov and Anton Mozgalev. I was seduced by it, visually and aurally, and interested to discover from colleagues that some disliked it intensely, finding it derivative or kitsch. One episode could indeed have been jettisoned: a Christmas tree and a Father Christmas, shockingly rupturing the prevailing smoke greys and whites in his traditional red outfit, played a jolly scene with sinister undertones. It might have been a critique of western materialistic excess. But I continue to hold in my mind’s eye stage pictures unlike any I’ve seen before and I remember the evening with amazement at the invention of the director, Dimitry Aryupin, and pleasure in the theatricality of the image-making. Penny Francis
Teatro Corsario Aullidos ICA Corsario’s previous Mime Fest appearance, I recall, featured vampires and sex with giant spiders. Told that the new show was ’worse’, I naively asked: what could be worse? ‘Darling, cunnilingus with wolves’ came the reply. And well yes, this was a feature – an extended feature, a recurring motif you could say – along with baby-eating giants, blood-sucking beasts, bonking bishops, and bare bums. Oh, and a fair few permanently erect cocks of rather grand dimensions (half a leg at least); an execution by the Spanish Inquisition; mermaid erotica; and a wild-eyed ghost. The word carnivalesque could have been invented for Corsario. Grotesque is their middle name. Eat your heart out Rabelais (burp, excuse me, heartburn). So what’s the story? Well, the ghost is the victim of the Inquisition, the mother of our heroine Thalia. Though dead, she vows to protect her innocent child from the onslaught of the world of evil. It turns into a version of Sleeping Beauty, and Thalia spends much of her onstage time asleep. Asleep and naked, draped over a rock, legs not exactly splayed, but open enough to suggest availability – and true to the fairy tale’s dark origins she’s awoken with something a little more stirring than a kiss… It’s puppet porn, basically. Oh, didn’t I mention that this was puppet theatre? Aha, yes, that’s the thing – you can do anything with puppets, as Punch professors and therapists alike will testify. Corsario seem intent on testing that hypothesis to its limits. They have the making and animating skills to pull it off, but despite the supposedly risqué subject matter there is something quaintly old-fashioned about it all – not least in the oddly-translated and comical (in the wrong sort of way) pre-recorded soundtrack. So fun of sorts whilst it lasted, but ultimately nothing much to surprise, subvert or even to satisfy. Dorothy Max Prior
O Ultimo Momento Peut-Être Laban The best thing is falling, which is flying, said João Paulo dos Santos in the aftershow discussion. I think what kept this show from being quite as great as it could have been was that the joy that João finds in his performance, and the pleasure that he takes from his friendship with jazz musician and collaborator Guillaume Dutrieux, was never allowed to take charge of the show. Peut-être plays as a duet between João (a Chinese-pole specialist) and Guillaume (a jazz musician, who, for this performance at least, traverses the stage on roller-skates), but the nature of their on-stage relationship is never exactly clear — broadly Guillaume was the aggressor, forcing João up the pole in spite of his fatigue/anxiety, although there were suggestions also of shared dependency. There was a lot of eye-contact between the two, but it was hard to know what was being communicated. Nevertheless, the show was extremely successful in evoking a queer world of distortion and doubling into which projection and live music slotted perfectly. There wasn’t a great deal of technology on display, but its use was always planned within a structure that moved between (visual and sonic) complexity and simplicity and created brilliant instances of focused attention: in particular a silent performance from João which came gradually to be tracked by the amplified sounds of his own movement. The sweetest and most theatrically affecting moment, though, came near the end when Dutrieux gave João a saxophone and the two of them together played the tune that had had its melodic shape sketched throughout the show. João wasn’t great at saxophone, but it didn’t at all matter. John Ellingsworth
Miquel Barceló and Josef Nadj Paso Doble Barbican Theatre The backdrop, theme and context for this show is a huge slab of clay, approximately 15m x 10m and painted white. It is propped up canvas-like against an easel with an identically sized slab of pinky clay laid in front of it. This set and stage framed by a theatre. As the Barbican Theatre doors close on each row silence is interrupted repeatedly by the ticklish coughs of January and subtle slushing slaps as small bumps and boils appear in the clay screen, pressed out from behind, the first gestures of performance. These bumps are playful, then fingers emerge and with them shapes; fish heads, faces, life in the clay. This is an exciting proposition that keeps growing as two clean and suited, roughly respectable men appear. Spanish painter Miquel Barceló and the Paris-based choreographer Josef Nadj deftly manipulate crude tools to transform the setting into a forest, a carpark or perhaps some homage to Derek Jarman’s Dungeness garden? A well is dug out, water poured in, signalling a change in tempo as chaos begins to play a stronger role in this creation. The sound, seemingly generated from the form itself, begins in a subterranean drone and builds as soundscape to punctuate the decisive gear changes marking time through this performance. Part of what makes this piece powerful is the role of the performer cum technician cum artist transforming, as clay becomes mask, costume, collaborator, weapon and slave. True to the spirit of the London International Mime Festival programme, not a word passes the artists lips. Their bodies are expressive but in service to the material which covers and consumes them. And after the canvas has been chiselled and moulded, climbed up, thrown at and danced into, it is painted white and left for our gaze. This motif, repeated throughout, allows the viewer to continually ponder on this inspiring work of art. Pippa Bailey
BP Zoom A Wonderful World QEH, South Bank Centre BP Zoom are Bernie Collins (Mr B) and Philippe Martz (Mr P), a delightful clown duo, whose extended entrees around the theme of flight are joyous, comic, occasionally touching, and frequently hilarious. The duo subvert and develop the classic whiteface/auguste clown relationship, in that although Mr P is clearly the put upon fool, his naivety is tempered with a realistic understanding of the duo’s clownish predicaments, whereas the short-sighted, fussy Mr B in his frock coat, smart trousers and carefully combed hair fails to see the obvious. Using gesture, eccentric dance, slapstick and sound the show opens with a delightful entrée in which both clowns are in large cardboard boxes, pretending that they are ballooning. Deftly they take us into their imaginative world and then in a clever coup de theatre, when opening the celebratory champagne, Mr B’s balloon and his reality is punctured, setting up a fierce rivalry between them. This is played out clownishly using the simple device of throwing a paper plane which progressively becomes more competitive until Mr B creates a plane that can apparently fly in a perfect circle round him, itself a wonderful illusion. This finishes with a visually poetic image of a giant paper plane circling majestically round the stage. The precise use of music – parodying 2001: A Space Odyssey for example – was inspired, and under the direction of Jos Houben, this was a wonderful piece of contemporary clowning, which was innovative and inventive whilst having a timeless appeal, pleasing adults and children alike. Richard Cuming
Collectif Petit Travers Le Parti Pris des Choses Purcell Room, South Bank Centre ‘Nu-circus’ in the UK all-to-often seems to mean the conglomeration of an overarching frame to circus skills and turns – invoking the ghost of story but ultimately affirming circus as a non-narrative form. Collectif Petit Travers gloriously explode this stereotype, providing an hour of acutely observed character play executed entirely through performances in juggling, trapeze and dance. This tight three-hander playfully explored the relationship triangle of a juggler, a dancer and trapeze artist (though with some beautiful skills animating this dynamic). The effortless displays of skill on offer spoke clearly to the character dynamic and were enriched by this – the trapeze as a weapon of defence; juggling balls a hypnotic attraction; dance as the tenderest touch. Yet whilst emotion, delicately and idiosyncratically drawn, became the engine of the performance, the material – objects, bodies, space, speed – of the ‘circus’ was given its own weight and presence. The simple pleasure of watching the arc of a ball curve and drop was heightened to an art; high-flying multiple juggling feats giving way to the joy of letting a hundred or so rubber balls bounce wheresoever they wanted across a bare stage. There’s a sense of purity here – a Kantor-esque confidence in the virtue of objects (including objectified bodies) to be pleasing in performance simply by being the most like themselves. That the confidence of the company finally allowed them to take an audience largely made up of young people into more abstract presentation of image, object and movement was an astonishing achievement. Beccy Smith
Gandini Juggling Downfall Clore Studio, Royal Opera House Sean Gandini is an unsung gem of the British arts scene, awareness of his work hardly extending beyond the contemporary circus world, but with this sell-out show at the Royal Opera House hopefully he will begin to find a wider audience. The choice of a venue more associated with dance/alternative performance firmly contextualises the complexity and delicacy of his work as he continues to reveal the intrinsic beauty of juggling, exploring it as choreography, revelling in its patterns, and in doing so lifting it to a level of this venue’s more regular output. Downfall is a step up in the company’s level of execution, having meticulous detail and deftness whilst still retaining the delicate warmth and gentle seriousness of previous shows. It is principally a piece of visual choreography, though permeating it is a gentle whiff of theatricality (coaxed out by John-Paul Zaccarini), creating moments of intense emotional response that somehow remain unquantifiable. These moments emerge through either simple choices of positioning, the rhythmical sound of balls bouncing or through more overt approaches: the magnificent finale built around a pre-programmed illuminated club sequence, performed to Mozart’s Symphony 25, stood closer to a son et lumiere than a ‘juggling show’. My one hesitant thought is that the piece feels like a collection of distinct pieces: different songs in a single gig, if you like. Though, like a good gig, the whole piece entrances its audience and in this Gandini is right at the heart of what great circus can be. Thomas Wilson
Sarah Wright Silent Tide ICA A miniature satellite describes an arc through the air. A performer spins a disc onto which the moon is projected. A small winged wooden featureless puppet emerges from the sand. All to the strains of bowed found/made instruments. So began Silent Tide, a beguilingly beautiful and misguidedly frustrating show in equal measure. The ICA is a relatively intimate space, yet we were still given (and needed) opera glasses to have any chance of seeing the actions of this world in miniature. That aside, the piece itself suffers from a lack of coherence and clarity – which is frustrating, as when it worked it produced some dazzling moments: A group partying with fireworks; the rise of an industrial landscape and a cityscape from the dust; an intimate view of the lives of the city's inhabitants – a woman with a wardrobe of red dresses, an old man who's TV is on the blink, and a person vacuuming (with live sound). Then there's the final coup de theatre as the winged puppet busts into flames and descends Icarus-like, which will live long in the memory; so will the frustration of trying to make sense the soup of sounds and fragments of the world we're watching. Sometimes it's good to leave it to the audience to piece together disparate elements, but I felt like I was left floundering in the dark, alienated by the red plastic binoculars my aching arm held to my nose. Beautiful but flawed. Matt Ball
Beauty and the Beast Lyric, Hammersmith Cinderella Old Vic, London Cinderella Theatre Royal, Brighton Well, boys and girls, what do we have here then? Three shows inspired by the fairy tales of Perrault, as is oft the way come midwinter. One modern panto by a renowned physical & devised theatre company (Told By An Idiot’s Beauty and the Beast); one cheeky and knowing reworked panto written by Stephen Fry (The Old Vic’s Cinderella) and one provincial theatre company’s promise of a ‘truly traditional pantomime’ (Cinderella again – but it is the most performed panto in the land, so hardly surprising). So, to nick a line from Tom Morris (see Total Theatre Vol 20 Issue 01): is there anything here that is surprising, and therefore interesting theatrically? Surprise one: that in many ways the modern one is the most traditional. Oh yes it is! Featuring an impressive cast of contemporary physical/devised theatre-makers, including Hayley Carmichael (co-founder of Told By An Idiot) and Javier Marzan of Peepolykus, it’s written by Paul Hunter and Carl Grose of Kneehigh (whose own almost-a-panto Rapunzel was running concurrently at the South Bank, starring Paul Hunter!). We were treated to all the ‘truly traditional’ elements of panto. This fairy tale with a modern twist, (panto has always been thus – references to contemporary culture or concerns an important element of the tradition) featured, amongst other delights: a wheelchair-user Beauty (the lovely Lisa Hammond); cross-dressing dames that make no attempts to hide their masculine attributes (Ooh I say, no – I’m talking about Nick Haverson’s moustache here); liberal use of stock characters from Commedia Dell Arte (Hayley Carmichael is a wonderfully arch and vain sister); animal characters as magic helpers (Javier, you can be my dog any day of the week); excellent use of the painted ‘frontcloth’ for songs and slapstick ‘business’ while the set changes take place. The design is great. The Beast’s castle is a created with scaffolding – giving plenty of opportunity for Beast–dog animal shenanigans – and the magical shapeshifting of Beast, his palace and his gardens is portrayed with simplicity and streamlined style by shadow theatre, object animation and moving screens. The wheelchair also makes a great prop, used to brilliant effect. All good stuff, a great night out for all the (extended, multicultural, able-bodied and disabled) family. The surprise at the Old Vic was to realise what a wonderful female clown Sandy Toksvig is. Excuse my ignorance, but I only know her from Radio 4 and didn’t realise she had this whole past life treading the boards and being a children’s entertainer. She takes the excellent and (of course) witty script by Fry and runs with it. The marvellous panto tradition of knowing asides and complicity with the audience is played to the max: the conceit is that apart from being the narrator, she has to step into the action and play other characters because people haven’t showed up. So she’s onstage for a great deal of the time, berating Buttons or whoever if they get muddled about who she is at any given moment. (‘But Ambassador!’ says Buttons, ‘No dear’, comes the reply, ‘I’m the Narrator now; totally different character,’ delivered with just the right tone of mild annoyance.) Despite the expected Fry subversions (a gay romance between Buttons and Dandini – which of course we could see as part of the panto tradition of constant change in any case) tradition is for the most part adhered to pretty steadily in this production. The pre-walkdown Songsheet scene sees our narrator getting the whole heaving house at the Old Vic on their feet and bumping up and down on the ‘Bs’ to ‘My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean’. The Theatre Royal’s Cinderella had its heart in the right place, and someone had obviously done their homework: they used the Grimaldi/Dan Leno inspired story-line of Baron Hardup, with all the traditional characters and plot twists firmly in place (including the in-the-woods scene where Cinderella is tested by the Fairy Godmother posing as a poor old woman); ‘good’ entered stage right, ‘evil’ stage left, as they should; all the usual add-on sparkle elements were included – dancing juveniles (or Babes), cross-dressing dames, woodland scenes, real live Shetland ponies, lavish costumes, elaborate sets. Where it worked best was in the fun and frolics of sections like the trad ghost scene (he’s behind you!) set (predictably) to the tune of Ghostbusters, and a version of Old MacDonald’s farm that featured a small child offering ‘Starfish’ as her animal of choice for the audience to make the appropriate noises for. Where it was most mundane was in the choreography, which was pure 80s stageschool-inspired-by-Hot-Gossip. Where it was truly, unforgivably dire was in the casting of TV stars Kim & Aggie as the Ugly Sisters. Most panto experts reckon that the Sisters are one of the hardest roles in panto to pull off: you have to be an adept performer to make the swift shifts from amusing the audience to being hated by the audience (in, for example, the scene featuring the tearing up of Cinders’ invite.) There was plenty of scope for humour in the set-up of the stars of How Clean is Your House tormenting Cinders, but every time they came on stage the pace dropped, the jokes fell flat and the whole thing felt as flat as a pancake. So in the single most crucial tradition of panto, Theatre Royal failed to deliver: the casts the thing, chaps – and clown and physical theatre skills (which in essence are at the heart of the panto tradition) cannot be learnt in a couple of week’s rehearsal. It’s the bane of modern panto, this giving of key roles to people who don’t know how to walk across a stage, never mind pull off one of the toughest jobs in theatre. This is a job for the professionals, so back you go to TV land, impostors! Dorothy Max Prior
The 7 Fingers Loft The Roundhouse, London An old show that is looking its age, Loft worked best when it concentrated inward rather than looking out to the audience for participation or, sadly, applause. There were good moments. An aerial solo played out on hanging and looped chains was best — graceful, strong and technically complex, it probably hurt like hell. But there were a lot of mistakes in the routines, and they were not the kind, admitted and surmounted, that foreground the skill and courage of the performer. A big part of what went wrong is that the company failed to create an atmosphere or relationship with the audience within which frailty or humanness was permissible — too much grandstanding, too much shouting YEAH to generate excitement, too little candour. The dominant tension/release cycle was that dreaded embarrassment/relief one. It’s not that the Fingers are past it as performers exactly, or that all circus artists should retire at 30; it’s more that they’re pushing themselves through the same routines they did five years ago. It sort of hurts to watch. The conceit that was supposed to draw together and strengthen the individual acts — that all the performers live together (in a loft, I guess) — actually ended up weakening the show. In their relationships as they are presented to us there is meant to be a playfulness and ease — a newness — that is inappropriate to the performers as they appear before our eyes: they have outgrown this. How can it feel real? Sex was there and kind of not. Attempts at characterisation didn’t come off. The worst thing is: they all had names; I can’t remember their names.
Office Party Xmas 2007 The Pit, Barbican, London / bite07 Office Party is an immersive theatre event: the audience/partygoers are invited into a created environment (‘the party’) in which, in interactivity with the performers animating that environment, they become an integral part of the show. Name-tagged, we are roped into various team-building and festive-fun-inducing games, everything fuelled by a fair amount of pay-bar liquor and free crisps and nuts. Every so often (although not often enough) we are treated to a cabaret interlude by the likes of Tina C (one of Chris Green’s alter-egos). Green and Martinez are well versed in this sort of thing; through their work on numerous Duckie shows, Spiegeltent’s La Clique, and Green’s marvellous Ida Barr events. Yet their personalities are sadly distanced from this event: their appearances few and far between. The main thrust of the evening is down to the support players and the not-too-remarkable outcome that given a directive to behave like people at an office party, people behave like – yes, people at an office party. So if the aim was to blur distinctions between art and life, they succeeded. Right down to the snogging couples in the corner, drunk gold-lame-clad girls tottering around in giggling gaggles, dad-dancing groovers, and half-naked lads in Santa hats. But why do it? To sneer at people who like this sort of thing? To validate the rights of people to party like its 1990-whatever? To give arty Londoners the opportunity to pretend they are in a Ricky Gervais sitcom? I’m afraid I’m a bit of a party pooper. I spent a great deal of my time (as I would at any other loud, beery, dry-ice-ridden disco) dazed, fazed and out-of-place. Me, I’d much prefer a nice cup of tea and game of bingo with dear old Ida. Dorothy Max Prior
Troop Purcell Room, South Bank Centre Troop, conceived and choreographed by Jane Turner, is an exploration of the modern archetype The Showgirl, in which ‘dancers create characters who create characters’. It is a show in which that archetype is, in the choreographer’s words, less subverted than celebrated. The Showgirl is the embodiment of ‘being alive’ and thus to be invited into our hearts. It’s OK to be gazed at, runs the message, as long as we can gaze back: ‘I’m watching you, watching me, watching you’. The relationship of the showgirl to the male (and female!) gaze is at the heart of the piece. Troop takes all the expected tropes and presents them to us beautifully and without irony: the Busby Berkeley line-up, the Tiller Girls circle, the silhouette, the strut, the podium dance. There may be no subversion, but there is commentary – and these more theatrical scenes are the strongest in the piece: in one, a stage-full of dancing girls grooving in their own world each in turn stop to take a telephone call – here, we see clearly, are other people’s daughters, mothers, lovers and girlfriends. In another scene, tired feet relinquish dance shoes, which are piled up into one set of arms, then dropped to the floor, creating an instant image of end-of-the-night abandonment. I’m less interested when Troop strays too far into an expressive dance territory that become a little too close to parody for comfort. Thankfully, this happens only occasionally. Mostly, an elegant and engaging tribute to that beautiful creature, The Showgirl. Dorothy Max Prior
Sydney Opera House and Malthouse Theatre Honour Bound Barbican Six years after it was first established, and despite worldwide condemnation of its appalling human rights violations, the US military detention centre at GuantánamoBay in Cuba remains open. This new piece from director Nigel Jamieson and choreographer Garry Stewart explores the story of one detainee, Australian national David Hicks, who spent more than five years at the camp. Set in a giant metal cage, the production fuses contemporary dance-theatre with aerial work and video projection. The biting physicality of the choreography is uncomfortable to watch, each twist and shuddering contortion evoking a new misery inflicted on a helpless prisoner. Scenes of sexual violence perpetrated by the prison’s female guards are particularly harrowing. But there are ellipses here. First that despite the power and strength of the physical performance and visual imagery, the production lacked the unequivocal statements that are so badly needed in the fight to close Guantánamo. At the same time, there was an unnerving lack of balance in the telling of Hicks’ tale. Narrated mainly through the testimony of his parents, his story was presented in almost uncompromisingly sympathetic tones. Carefully chosen excerpts from letters, Pentagon documents and news footage support a view of Hicks as an entirely innocent victim. This is perhaps not a wild exaggeration – many prisoners in Guantánamo appear to have committed no crime – but the decision not to tell of how or why Hicks came to be captured with Taliban forces in Afghanistan undermined the production’s credibility. Harry Werber
Gekidan Kaitasha Bye Bye: Reflection Riverside Studios, Hammersmith Gekidan Kaitasha means ‘theatre of deconstruction’ and the company aim to deconstruct social understanding of such theatrical concepts as the body and the self through their performance presentations. ‘Raw’ performances of the live body – corporeal and vulnerable, which might be literally damaged on stage or offered in an unflinchingly personal way to the audience aim to peel away social and political accretions forcing us to re-appraise the way we read the world. I was an enormous fan of an earlier piece in the this sequence, Bye Bye: the New Primitive , which in 2001 offered a thrilling (re)presentation the body as raw material and whose images and physicality were an in-yer-face challenge exploring, amongst other things, the fictions of politics and the brutal mundane reality of domestic violence. This is a challenging dramaturgy however: it’s not easy to constantly subvert the audience’s inclination to read stage pictures and performances (it is, arguably, not supposed to be easy) and political ideas are difficult to inventively translate to dynamic theatre. In Bye Bye: Reflection the company seemed unfortunately to have stepped over from sophisticated performance philosophy into obscurity. All the ingredients were still there – battered (live) human bodies, disconnected physical images charged with corporal and emotional tension for the audience to extrapolate from, broad references to national and international politics. The best moments were the simplest: the poised tension of fragile bodies executing movements that at times gestured toward all sorts of intriguing social and personal metaphors. But this resonance was lost elsewhere, leaving the audience excluded from the multiple languages and abrasive anger of the performances. And even the politics felt simplified and unclearly integrated: reduced to being writ large as projected text across the stage Beccy Smith
Forkbeard Fantasy Invisible Bonfires Toynbee Studios, London Global warming. An important issue, we’re all agreed. How best to spread the message? Enter, stage left, The Brittonioni Brothers, the anarchic alter-egos of Forkbeard mainmen Tim and Chris Britton. They’re here to present an awareness-raising roadshow, and thus we are treated to a cabaret-style ‘investigation’ of the GW problem, cheekily flagging up the terrible muddle of mis-information, not to mention all-round hypocrisy, that surrounds the subject. (This epitomised wonderfully in the central visual motif of the show: a clunky pedal-powered ‘energy system’ which turns out to be a fake – there’s a generator out the back.) There is actually a great deal of heartfelt agit-prop here in this multimedia performance bonanza: but Forkbeard always hang on to the power of humour (as well as the horsepower) as the saving grace of us poor ‘Carbon Weevils’, as we are dubbed in a manic animation-cum-talk-over by Timmy B (Carbon Weevils are odd creatures who live in boxes, endlessly reproducing and spending most of their days in their metal shells ‘sniffing each other’s backsides’). This extraordinary performance pot pourri also includes: a whizz-bang tour of the Death of Magyck, framed around an on screen-off screen search for Prospero’s Book; live band the Lotus Pedals who feature a guitarist using potato power; the Big Bang viewed through 3D specs; a groovy shadow-theatre Pan; a toupee’d patio heater salesman; an edible world cake. Oh, and the most beautiful puppet horse you are ever likely to see. All-in-all, it is a great deal of fun, if a little bit of a sensory overload at times (the everything plus the kitchen sink/synch syndrome). We weevils may be dying, but we shall at least die laughing. Dorothy Max Prior
Helena Hunter Tracing Shadows Linbury Studio, Royal Opera House, London This was an understated short, the subtlety of which demanded much from the audience. The relationship of a soundscape of muffled whistling, ropes creaking and distant strings to the main action, in which focus was on the body (specifically, the shifting territory of the female human body), was a challenging one. Images slipped in and out of focus and the whole was obscured (though not obscure, necessarily) by shady lighting – we were chasing, as well as tracing, a theatre of shadows. This delicate aesthetic was periodically interrupted by bolder, clearer images, which served as much-needed anchors: a scarlet dress descending on a fly centre-stage articulated the fairytale theme with pleasing simplicity. An exciting sequence of human puppetry, as the performer was manhandled into the dress which took on a life of its own, clearly and dynamically set out some the central ideas of the piece. Other ideas were staged more richly metaphorically – abstract shapes formed by Hunter’s body and echoed in Chiara Ambrosio’s organic images on stage juxtaposed the familiarity and strangeness of the female form; the closing moments of coltish self-presentation to the audience ambivalently bold and tentative. Unfortunately, whilst the Linbury Firsts showcases are a great platform for experimental work, the piece felt compromised by its transfer to a larger-scale venue (having previous played in the more intimate Chelsea Theatre studio) and some of the staging felt as a result frustratingly obscure(d), the performance over-tentative. Ultimately I was left feeling that I wanted to see more of this artist’s work, in every sense. Beccy Smith
Told by an Idiot Casanova Lyric Hammersmith This gender bending retelling of the master seducer’s story was fun and often funny, even if it was rather uneven. With Casanova recast as a disingenuous but sexually irresistible woman (Hayley Carmichael), the plot gambolled around Europe, its travels punctuated by regional vignettes: a prison break in Italy, a bullfight in Spain , a mountain climb in the Alps . The dialogue, written by Carol Anne Duffy, sometimes showed a little too much of the poet’s touch. Like an eighteenth-century courtesan showing a bit more leg than necessary, it could have left more to the imagination. Then again, the colloquially anachronistic banter during Casanova’s jaunt round Northern England was truly inspired. Carmichael gave a sweet, touching, world-weary performance as the famous lothario, her lowest moments tinged with a heartfelt sadness. Casanova’s advancement through the years was competently controlled in Carmichael ’s physical performance. Aside from Carmichael and the happily exuberant ‘kitchen boy’ (Tonin Zefi), however, there was a disappointing lack of edge to the performances. There were satisfying comic touches – the row of spectacularly daft hairstyles lowered onto the heads of some wonderfully foppish courtiers; the bull fight that turned into a dance of love – but they were offset by some extraneous and indulgent dance sequences. It was a show that never quite knew what it wanted to be, as it shambled along a narrow causeway between bawdiness and sensitivity. But if the result was a bit muddy, it was the kind of mud you wouldn’t mind splashing around in. Harry Werber
People Show The 40th Birthday Tour Show People Show Studios, London Can it really be 40 years? I can’t say I’ve been there since the very beginning, but I first saw The People Show on the occasion of their 1oth birthday, when they appeared at the ICA in (I think) 1976. This was my first experience of devised, experimental theatre – and 30 years on, two simultaneous thoughts occurred to me on seeing this latest show. First thought was: gosh, isn’t it amazing how everything I’m witnessing is now standard practice within a certain tradition of theatre-making: cue the audience being moved around the space, the clown masks and dancing dolls, the postmodern ‘entertainer’ on the tour bus we are escorted on to, the mix of live bodies and projections in the black-and-white room we are next ushered to, the live and recorded music mashes, the cut-up text, the longtable with bored-looking performers seated behind, eyeing up the audience, the vaudevillian pastiche. Remember, remember – these people were doing all this stuff while Forced Entertainment were still in primary school. The second thought was that although I saw all this as normal, over-familiar even, it was depressing to think that in the four decades since the first People Show, ‘total theatre’ has made so little inroad into the theatre establishment. Most of the West End and provincial theatres are still many miles from where we are here… Perhaps some people will always be outside the mainstream, and maybe that’s what they’d want and that’s what is meant to be. The People Show, along with companies such as Lumiere & Son, CrystalTheatre of the Saint and Forkbeard Fantasy, are the instigators of the traditions of multimedia physical, visual and devised theatre/performance work in the UK . They don’t seem to attract the academic and critical interest of some other giants of experimental theatre practice, but on the occasion of their 40 th birthday, let’s raise a glass: The People Show – keep doing it! Dorothy Max Prior
Big State Theatre Company Fallen Angels The Rondo, Bath Still mixing film and live performance, BigState takes us into the cinema with its latest offering. A tiny screen shows film trailers followed by the main feature, Fallen Angels , a tale of a modern desert war field hospital. The characters climb out of the cinema screen onto the stage and when their hospital is bombed the surgeons are tossed into a parallel reality where they exist in a sort of crazy film loop. What follows is an intriguing journey as the main character tries to discover who he is and why he’s in this particular film. ‘He has no back story’, one character says, and we realise that this is a tale about the interplay of fantasy and reality. Our hero is thwarted in bouts of hilarious wordplay with the other characters, who can only respond as the two dimensional beings that they are. Towards the end, he is catapulted into scenes from the aforementioned film trailers: it’s certainly an amusing denouement, but I did feel that the writer was possibly hurrying to a conclusion. Overall, Fallen Angels is a brave attempt to investigate big abstract themes and John Nicholson of Peepolykus writes a fascinatingly dense plot. Once again the talented actors of BigState have come up with a unique and daring piece. Brian Popay
Marisa Carnesky Magic War Soho Theatre, London Marisa Carnesky’s latest solo show is a pretty regular kind of affair in comparison to some of her previous work, which has included the marvellous Ghost Train (an installation-performance ride on a real fairground ghost train), a part in the award-winning table-dancing meets live art extravaganza C’est Vauxhall by Duckie, an appearance in The Insect Circus and numerous burlesque/live art pieces set in nightclubs, attics, hotel rooms, and abandoned buildings. Regular, that is, in that it takes place on a stage in a ‘normal’ theatre venue; but this being La Carnesky, it is not what one would normally expect to find at the Soho Theatre. Yes, there is onstage storytelling – acting, even – but there’s also a plethora of Victorian illusions, including Marisa’s levitating lady and a young man (a soldier, in fact) locked into a cabinet of swords; not to mention a long and rather off-the-wall audience participation section in which people are invited onstage to act out games of war with toy knives, and, in a scene that tests the crowd’s morality (or otherwise), a scene of ‘execution’ with a wonderfully realistic Magic Guillotine. Juxtaposing magical illusion with agit-prop politics with fourth-wall-breaking interactive theatre is a difficult trick to pull off, and Carnesky almost manages it. Her performance is stylised, but with just the right tone of complicity with the audience. The visual images created onstage, her physical presence (enhanced by sumptuous satin costumes that seem to reference an imaginary country somewhere in Eastern Europe ), and her vocabulary of precise physical action and gesture owe a lot both to the artist’s vision and the watchful eye of director Flick Ferdinando. There is a little shakiness in some of the interactions with the audience, and the energy sags somewhat in these sections. All-in-all it feels like there needs to be a little more development of the narrative and thematic aspects so that there is less a feeling of a series of vignettes and more of a feeling of cohesion to the whole piece. However a not-quite-there-yet from Marisa Carnesky is a great deal more interesting than most things you are likely to see on a stage! Dorothy Max Prior Momix Greatest Hits Peacock Theatre, London Greatest Hits takes us on a journey through some of the best moments of thirty years of Momix shows. Consequently there is no overall journey or theme to lead the audience, no substance, apart from what is in the fifteen individual pieces. Yet the fantasy, the beauty, the rigorous precision of the work inevitably reaches into us and stirs up wonder and awe. The dancers are clearly highly trained in a balletic dance style, yet their technique, though underlying all that they do, recedes into the background as the dancer-illusionists create moments of great beauty, longing, and humour. Director/choreographer Moses Pendleton has a remarkable talent, for each exotic scene he has created has an astonishing level of detail. In Pole Dance the dancers appear to defy gravity as levered by their poles they move through, over and around each other. In Dream Catcher , with its rolling sculpture, two dances fly, role, are lifted in perfect timing with the movements of the giant sculpture across the stage. It is not difficult to see how the movements are done; it is their precision and beauty of execution that are so uplifting. Knowing the incredible talent of Moses Pendleton, as a connoisseur of their work over twenty years, I wonder why he is presenting a collection old work rather than creating new but I hope that it is not because his creative genius is exhausted. Philip Beaven
Cage QEH, South Bank Centre The strength of Renegade’s previous productions, Rumble and Street Life , was in their exuberant celebration of B-boy dance with all its posturing glory. In Rumble , a spirit of fun and spectacle was brilliantly married with the pathos of Romeo and Juliet . When I saw the show in Edinburgh two years ago, the performers’ encore was nothing more than a showcase of the wildest somersaults, body-popping and handplants the performers could produce, and it was met with brilliant, whooping appreciation from the audience. No such joyful excess attended this latest production from the German company, billed as an update of Euripides’ Bacchae . It started well, with aerial work evoking a powerful image of birth, the dance accompanied by a nauseatingly loud heartbeat. From there, though, the piece descended into pretentious solemnity. The Cage in question was an open-topped Perspex box, eight feet high and big enough for several performers to run around in. It created a few memorable physical moments, especially when one performer bounced off an enormous trampoline at the rear of the stage to land standing on the edge of the box. But ultimately a device aching with choreographic potential was rendered mundane by a lack of imagination. The most critical failing was a lack of clear storytelling. Whereas Romeo and Juliet provided a universally understood basis for the physical narrative of Rumble , here the underlying tale needed more explanation, and it got less. Coupled with vague characterisation, this made for a frustrating show. At times it was physically impressive, but like the performer balanced on the edge of the box, it only ever teetered on the brink of significance. Harry Werber
Derevo Ketzal Komedia, Brighton Ketzal ’s origins are: “voices, morning mist, walls of rain, and everything that was before it”. The audience sit, as if absorbing a sermon in church. The audience watch agog, as if witnessing a thrilling spectacle at the circus. The audience look on, as if overseeing a kindergarten of exuberant beings. Young people next to me say it's the weirdest thing they'd ever seen… A timeless landscape erupting; chimera creatures and a cockerel-faced antagonist with a forearm-sized phallus; a flower impregnated. Tautly-fleshed, four-legged, loose-limbed beings lightly lurching like neckless giraffes. A carried wooden totem pole. Swirling, kaleidoscopic skirts. A flood, jubilant splashing in the water, and a huge red sunrise: an end, yet a beginning. Having seen two previous incarnations of this show, my heart was uplifted to witness performing in this version (alongside director Anton Adasinsky) original Derevo members Tatiana Khabarova and Elena Iarovaia – their sublime, unique performance qualities unrivalled by any subsequent second-generation Derevo performers. A wondrous moment comes as Tatiana's character – eyes steady, silently approaching the audience in a full green skirt, a dream to behold – halts at the very front of the performance space, and a coiled red rope spills off the crown of her head. I was overwhelmed at the first (2005) version of Ketzal, seen in Firenze in Italy, in which I could no longer think, and felt both lost and found at the same time. I was not as captivated by the Edinburgh Festival 2006 version. But happily this 2007 re-touring of Ketzal, lyrical and full of grace, had me feeling full of pleasure and shadowy delight. Miriam King
James Thierree Au Revoir Parapluie Sadlers Wells Cavernous darkness is the background of the sweeping, dreaming images that illuminate the stage, as slippery worlds slide away from each other, into each other and around each other in this dynamic animation of the subconscious. A classic family image is conjured: James Thierree puts his arm around his partner and a hand on the head of his child. But the image dissolves as soon as it is formed, and the chase for his loved ones begins. As worlds slide away and they lose each other through shifting spheres, the reunions are heartrendingly beautiful. Melancholic also. There are times when the black void behind the man seems engulfing: too much is too far out of reach. Thierrree is mesmerising and superlatively talented, pushing his body through and beyond the boundaries of the possible. And his skill is never haughty, laced as it is with that kick of clown-like humility and fallibility. Kaoru Ito is no less brilliant. Yet it is testament to this technical prowess that it is never their skill which seems most prominent. Orbiting the soul, it is the human story that truly strikes a chord: the quest of one man navigating his dreams to find what it is that brings him love, then to hold onto it, believe in it and treasure it, even if he might lose it at any moment. Au Revoir Parapluie is an intricately woven pattern of the absurd, the sublime and the beautiful. Let’s hope he finds his umbrella. Marigold Hughes
Theatre Ad Infinitum Behind the Mirror Blue Elephant Theatre, London This first piece from new company Theatre Ad Infinitum used elements of mime and clowning to tell a comic story about a love battle between a man and his reflection. Its empty stage required a world to be created through performance alone. The only prop was the hollow frame of a mirror, its glassy effect recreated by the performers; words were rendered in grummelot, a type of gobbledygook language that developed out of Commedia; objects were created through gesture and through the performer’s own sound effects. What drove the piece was its comedy, and this in turn was fired by the energy of all three performers. In the central role, George Mann’s excellent physical control allowed him to create laughs from the most mundane of activities, while Deborah Pugh had a great line in wounded lover expressions. It was a stylised, cartoonish piece of theatre, but it worked best when it stayed away from Acme-inspired slapstick. The fight scenes, for instance, needed tighter choreography to be truly funny. But where the piece excelled was in its well-observed rendering of the tiny human moments in a relationship, not just between lovers but between the different sides of a person’s identity. This was not revolutionary theatre, it didn’t carry political weight, but nor did it set out to do so. Taken on its own terms, as a well-executed slice of light entertainment, it was happily successful. Harry Werber
Tom Marshman Everybody's Kitchen Phoenix Arts Centre, Exeter Tom Marshman serves himself up on a bed of cutlery. This is the beginning of a generous ritual of sharing in which Marshman oscillates between dinner party host and priest of the table. There is a fulsome ambiguity to Marshman’s presence: educator in the finer points of the digestive system; immersed sensual consumer; and our representative as he swallows ‘the prawn that poisons you’, an act which is the gateway of the performance, the gear change to something modestly mythic. In the row in front of me, younger members of the audience were shivering with the giggles, testimony that they had been lured into uncertain sweet and sour space. Tit bits are paraded; poignancy, regret and allergy are cooked up. The opportunity for the knickerbocker glory is gone now. We are nibbling in the ’salad bar of broken dreams’ Crushed Nice biscuits are transformed into a desert of disappointment. Marshman waits, the lonely shaman, for his microwave to ping, and then ends with a glorious conjuring of the twin pillars of wisdom as, with whisk and kettle, he makes two columns of flour rise to the theatre’s roof - a fabulous climax to an accessible and hospitable ritual. Phil Smith
Human Computer BAC, London Sometimes the modern world gets too much for Will Adamsdale. Now, he is turning his attention to computers. Or he is, rather, turning into a computer – a human computer: THE human computer. Icons and images blossom into view, but technological it ain’t. Cardboard signs populate the stage, and in stark contrast with the sleek perfection of his subject, the aesthetic is triumphantly rough. Introducing us to his cardboard crew: the Arrow, the Hourglass, the ‘Devil Numbers’ and the tricksy icons in the bottom right hand corner (what do they do?) whilst distributing them amongst us – we perform a collective ‘boot up’ (complete with sound effects) using the mini-screen strapped to his back. Amazing. Gently slipping from a live conversation with the audience into a show – a quest to fight the ferocious spider virus – this bumbling navigation through the minefield of the PC is extremely funny. With Adamsdale, there is a somehow a feeling that you are backing the underdog and it’s strangely endearing. Perhaps, in the age of PCs and Macs, we are all underdogs. But here is one standing proud, not cowering before his desk – rather clambering on top to commence his one-man battle! Judging by the laughter, there could soon be more in the ranks. Maybe it isn’t so much of a battle as a call to arms. Computers, per se, are not the danger. The real virus? Turning into those machines that we spend so much time in front of, forgetting to laugh: both at ourselves and at them. There is no shortage of laughter here, or of warmth. It’s a cracking little piece, nestled cosily in the only space not taken over by The Masque of The Red Death and one in which – Will quips – we at least get a seat. Lucky us, I would say. Marigold Hughes
30 Bird Productions The Persian Revolution Warwick Arts Centre This performance declares that it will inform/educate. Does it? What preparation is needed to understand the story of the 1905 Persian Revolution? What references would be needed to see the comedy of the situation and the way it is explored? The promise of such epic work creates expectations about Iran ’s culture and its mythologies. I was hoping to come away with a sense of what the revolution was all about and an understanding of this period that might throw light on some of the sources of today’s conflicts in the Middle East . I anticipated a performance full of risk and precariousness but instead, overall, I witnessed an outdated physical style of presentation that relied heavily on stereotypical one-dimensional characterisation. The communication of historical information floundered in technique. Visually, The Persian Revolution was initially satisfying. The slickly designed blue backdrop supported a revolving climbing frame and TV aerial on top of a tower. Enter a pristine ensemble of blue-suited players into what promised to be a thought-provoking game of human snakes and ladders. It was all very easy on the eye. But the promising design-led environment became a cumbersome obstacle course rendering the performances self-conscious and disembodied. The performers were struggling to deliver the material. The message missed its mark. I found myself struggling too: looking for the deeper meanings but not finding them; waiting for an unveiling of information which had been promised but never came. I left the experience feeling frustrated, confused and disappointed. Carran Waterfield
Complicité A Disappearing Number Barbican Theatre, BITE, London Theatre du Bouffes du Nord/ Peter Brook Fragments The YoungVicTheatre , London Seeing A Disappearing Number , it is difficult not to feel impressed . The audience comes to Complicité’s work, now and in London , eminently receptive. United in its desire to like, and in its expectation, which is so rarely disappointed, the audience gives, and the performance matches expectation with the density of its gift. Auteur/director Simon McBurney takes as stimulus the relationship between Cambridge professor G.H. Hardy and mathematics prodigy Srinivasa Ramanujan. The piece is full of stuff: complex ideas, explored, explained and developed; human stories – about the above mathematicians, other mathematicians, other people entirely – well written and played with conviction. There is seamless film projection, original music created by Nitin Sawney, simple theatrical imagery used to brilliant effect. The audience, experiencing the collective energy of a big chunk of marble on a workshop floor, waits, laughs, cries, is delighted; it is in the hands of master craftsmen. Across London , three of Complicité’s founders (Jos Houben, Marcello Magni and Kathryn Hunter) reunite in Peter Brook’s Fragments , which attracts a similarly hopeful audience, packed into the Young Vic’s steeply raked MariaTheatre like pigeons perched on power lines. Here, however, there are no projection screens, no pieces of set sliding silently into place as if they have been freshly buttered. There is nothing, apart from the very minimum: a couple of stools, perhaps; a chair; two large laundry bags. Philippe Vialette’s lighting design, playing an installation role of its own, marks the space into geometric shapes, in silence. The three performers, working on Beckett’s shorter texts, play with skill and conviction. There are moments when the language, deceptively simple but intricately patterned in its repetition, creeps up gently and then leaps for the throat. Such is the case in Kathryn Hunter’s interpretation of Rockaby . The character she creates is a bewitched child, and an old woman; comfortably ensconced in a familiar old rocking chair, yet also falling hopelessly into darkness. Hunter’s extraordinary oiled-oak voice contains or communicates emotion with consummate fluency. In the Galleria dell'Accademia in Florence , which houses Michelangelo’s David , there are a series of unfinished sculptures, half emerged from blocks of marble with the hack-marks still on them. The David itself is a finished masterpiece, but there is something compelling about the attempt unrealised; the abandoned limbs and unsmoothed surfaces. Both A Disappearing Number and Fragments are lit up by the electricity of experience. But neither piece broke my heart or seared my soul. Of course, an audience which comes expecting to be impressed can also delight in tearing its idols down, and neither piece gives cause for this. Each contains its end within itself, and leaves nothing ragged and perhaps human flapping in the wind. The pieces themselves are so totally different as to be incomparable. But with both we, watching, are blocks of stone, waiting for a master to chip us into form; and both are unveiled, perfect and unimpeachable, and finished before we arrived. Cassie Werber
ChoppedLogic Double Negative Oval House Theatre, London The kind of work that falls within Total Theatre’s remit often proceeds by conjuring alternate realities — fantastic worlds which reflect our own only obliquely or ironically — while commentary on real lives and headline issues is left to the playwrights. In this quietly intelligent piece, ChoppedLogic seek to switch that around, presenting a multi-layered work which applies its rich theatrical aesthetic to a story about sex trafficking hitting suburbia. Double Negative plays in the round, with Susannah Henry’s assured set and Cis O’Boyle’s beautifully weighted array of domestic pendant lights creating an immersive field that Steve Rafter’s detailed sound design unites and extends - this sense of cohesiveness and control underwrites the whole piece. Director Dorcas Werber’s nuanced text, only occasionally overstretching its lyricism, is a fine example of ‘new writing’ adapted to equally new methodologies. The performances are excellent, with Lawrence Werber outstanding as the lonely curtain-twitcher whose quiet life is rudely interrupted; the touching sequence in which unexpected visitor Mai confronts a boiled egg for the first time is exquisitely played. Ultimately, though, the piece is just too cool and collected to really convince. We never confront the horror from which the house-guest has fled. As a poignant culture-clash drama, the piece excels: but it creates little space for anger or argument. The meticulous smoothness of its internal fluidity leaves nothing jagged to stick in the mind once it’s over. Double Negative absolutely reconfirms the promise of ChoppedLogic, but there’s room to be braver and bolder next time out. Chris Goode
Daedalus Selfish Camden People’s Theatre, London This show consisted of a series of seemingly unconnected scenes which explored the drudgery of living in the modern world, as well as the feeling of a shifting sense of self. Confused, devoid of narrative and with masses of multimedia fiddling, the piece swung between opacity and patronising simplicity. Either it relied too heavily on the audience to draw meaning from its angst-filled existentialist sketches, or it telegraphed their intended resonances so clearly (often almost literally, in the form of projected words sliding across a screen) that they became meaningless. I embrace the use of technology in theatre, when it is properly integrated with more traditional practices. This piece, however, was a paradigmatic example of the use of multimedia for its own sake, part of a current theatrical trend in which the implementation of technology is somehow seen to replace the need for performance skills or stagecraft. Surrounded by mechanical projectors of various sorts, the performers here forgot that they too needed to project, rendering what little dialogue there was almost inaudible. With a script hamstrung by the same metaphorical clichés that it attempted to satirise, perhaps this was no great loss. As an attempt at a discourse on the emptiness of modern life, this piece instead seemed to narrate the vapidity of its particular theatrical approach. Harry Werber
Graeae and New Wolsey Theatre Flower Girls New Wolsey Theatre , Ipswich Telling the story of a group of disabled women living and working at The Crippleage in London in 1940 and 1965, this new play by Richard Cameron was a tedious experience. Despite strong performances by Karina Jones and Sonia Cakebread, the acting was generally of a low standard, and even Cakebread’s performance was spoiled by a lack of honesty at points of crisis: her rendering of the character’s emotion was too affected to be empathetic. That lack of believability was symptomatic of the performances as a whole – a big problem in a small-scale emotional study. The script suffered from a distinct lack of depth. Constant repetition of first names might have been enough to illustrate connections between the characters across the two time periods, but it was not enough to develop the relationships between them in a clear or satisfying way. The comedy, meanwhile, depended on bawdy one-liners and silly accents. Perhaps, considering the setting of the story, the production design was understandably functional and uninspired, but everything about this production was drab, from the lighting to the direction to the sound design. Lacking any emotional punch, it was a piece that sadly failed to capture the hardship or the heroism of the women to whom it ostensibly paid tribute. Harry Werber
Neil Mackenzie, Mole Wetherell & Spencer Marsden After Dubrovka Grand Theatre, Lancaster Five years after the 57-hour siege of the Dubrovka Theatre in Moscow in October 2002, in which 129 hostages died along with all of the Chechen hostage takers, this installation is presented not as a theatre event but as an act of remembrance. Like a tour guide, an usher takes the audience in small groups through the back door of the theatre. Inside, the place is cold. Several speakers hang over the stage or are strapped to seats in the auditorium, where the audience of the previous slot watch the newly-arrived audience standing on the stage. The text, a broad reflection about acting and spectating, standing for something or witnessing, follows subdued familiar rhythmic patterns. While listening, one wonders whether the hostage takers had the chance to reflect upon their situation. Did they feel they were in costumes and had parts to play? One thinks as well of the kidnapped audience whose every move was watched. But After Dubrovka is not an act of witnessing: it is an imaginative reflection. The experience remains cerebral, with nothing of the body’s failure or resilience, no smell of latrines from the orchestra. The power of imagination is a great gift, as Hannah Arendt would say – it allows us to represent ourselves in the shoes of others. In this, it is a political power. But isn't the relatively safe experience of this installation sedating the political power of theatre? FTJ Dalmasso
Red Shift Much Ado About Nothing Pleasance Theatre, Islington Red Shift always have the power to make me feel under siege. Here their raw aesthetic and punchy opening gunshots promised fire and pace, qualities this particular Shakespeare play can often lack. But while the pace was relentless, the fire dissipated quickly. The contrived sung interludes lacked the voice training needed to see them through, but the use of live music was effective and abundant, and the pop song and dances revived the mood, while being a slightly random intervention. The highlight was the fantastic character switch as Dogberry and his sidekicks appear. The clowning sequences were spot on and worthy of the illustrious Tweedy’s skills. The strong and highly characterised movement and song, plus the innovative character switching as a cast of five plays all the parts, gave life to this potentially unsubtle play. Strong performances from the girls especially, elevated this humorous and light-hearted romp, which never seemed to take its war-time setting to heart. My love for this play has always stemmed from the close bond between Beatrice and Benedick. It was a shame that in this version there was something missing in the chemistry between the two. I came away giggling and shaking my head at the absurd, laugh-out-loud humour, but also at the niggling thought that something underlying was missing. Lydia Maxwell
Abalino Is that what you see? Norwich Puppet Theatre The Selfish Giant & Snow White Armando Morales The Devil and the Baker Nola Rae and Lasse Åkerlund, Homemade Shakespeare La Baldufa and Teatro Nacional de Catalunya Imaginary Book Norwich Puppet Theatre/The Playhouse, Norwich My experience at the Norwich International Festival of Puppetry got off to a great start. For one afternoon only, dance-theatre company Abalino brought their idiosyncratically beautiful show Is that what you see? to the Norwich Puppet Theatre. This was full-body puppetry, the performers inhabiting rather than manipulating the puppet characters. Empty dresses danced on a washing line, while a sleeping-bag evolved into a wonderfully icky slug-like creature. Three performers were needed to animate a very charismatic, sad old man who was pining to put on his dancing-shoes. The highlight of the piece, though, was the dance of a maniacal old couple created by a single, brilliant performer whose hands (in her doubled-over position) became a second pair of puppet feet. The two characters glided around the space, twirling one another, leaping, falling, but always locked in the intimate embrace of one another’s arms. Everything in this show was created with the most infectious charm and precise technical skill. The puppets breathed and moved with a beautifully stylised grace, while the lighting and the superb music created an environment laden with tension and wonder. The best pieces of theatre are those that you leave with a mind full of possibilities, synapses sparking, full of ideas. This show, with its wonderfully inventive visuals, was just such a piece. It left me both tingling with pathos and full of hope, my critical aspirations reinvigorated. If only the rest of the festival had been so good. The Selfish Giant , Norwich Puppet Theatre’s flagship in-house Christmas production, was a distinctly strange piece. Ostensibly aimed at children, the show’s storytelling was so simplified as to become opaque, with dialogue that largely consisted of nonsensical gibbering. The palpable feeling of frustration which developed in the young audience was not dispelled by an ending that was devoid of hope or wonder. The show benefited from carefully controlled variations in its physical pacing and from some interesting shadow-play, but ultimately it could not escape the bitterness of the story at its heart, nor overcome the effect of some poor directorial decisions. Equally bad decisions affected another in-house production, Snow White . Employing an odd collection of irritatingly jumpy stick puppets (the strangest of which must have been the prince’s incarnation as a bronze bust of Lenin, with plastic doll’s limbs attached) this unsatisfying production managed to make a simple story seem complicated. Most galling was its tampering with the fairytale basics: the production removed the kiss as the catalyst for Snow White’s awakening, replacing it with an explicitly unromantic encounter. The apparently deliberate decision to destroy in this way the story’s essential bond between romance and magic was inexplicable. The festival’s international credentials were bolstered by the presence of Armando Morales, artistic director of the National Puppet Theatre of Cuba, with his one-man show The Devil and the Baker . A hand-puppet piece enacted from behind a black cloth, this was very much aimed at children, but the performance I saw was the first to be performed in English. It was a valiant attempt, and most of the simple story made it across in a sweetly shaky translation. Morales was certainly a commanding presence, and his puppet baker managed to get the audience singing along, but the children watching seemed almost as much mystified as they were entertained. And from children’s hand puppets to Homemade Shakespeare , a show where Hamlet was played by a black leather glove, Macbeth by a tomato, and Romeo and Juliet by a couple of shopping bags. This new collection of works by well-known clown and mime artist Nola Rae and collaborator Lasse Åkerlund, told Shakespeare’s three great tragedies using various forms of found-object theatre, clowning and hand-puppetry. But the greatest tragedy here was the disregard for the language of the plays. Despite the humour and wit shown in these accelerated versions, Shakespeare without the language is like a peacock without its feathers – the shape is there, but none of the beauty. Thus Rae’s silent Hamlet, performed entirely with her hands, was intelligible but it was never moving. Åkerlund’s daft Macbeth was entertaining, but it lacked any whisper of horror or brutality. The performers here were clearly not looking to generate pathos, but perhaps this was just the problem – the most successful comedy is often that which is tempered by sadness, just as the most successful Shakespeare is almost always that which pays due respect to that writer’s language. Imaginary Book , by Spanish company La Baldufa and Teatro Nacional de Catalunya, was a warm-hearted, visually stimulating piece about a man whose book-bred fantasies allow him to escape the drudgery of office culture. A cartoon style was used throughout the piece, from the heavily physical weighting of the acting to the painted cardboard cutouts used to represent everything from kings to chickens. Its use of video projection was refreshingly judicious, particularly in the creation of a giant Gulliver in Lilliput, where the video work was beautifully integrated with the onstage action. With puppetry, cute shadow-play, and some slapstick packed in as well, this was a sweet, silly, satisfying show, and a happy ending to my time at the festival. Harry Werber
2FaCeD DaNcE Co State of Matter Zoo Southside Ensemble dance piece encompassing a wide range of physical and musical styles, from b-boy and hip-hop to ballet and classical – a showcase for the impressive technical and acrobatic skills of the eight-strong company. The progressive choreography was characterised by fluid interchanges between breakdance hand-plants and balletic leaps, all set to a varied musical score. The production’s changes in tone were beautifully underscored by James Mackenzie’s excellent lighting design. Powerful solos displayed starkly the immense skill and physical conditioning of some of the performers, though there were one or two noticeably weaker members of the ensemble, whose concentration could be seen to ebb slightly as the show went on. The synchronisation of the ensemble dances suffered in these later stages, indicative of a slight lack of control in both the performers and their directors: the piece was overlong and the dancers noticeably tired. A tighter focus on a smaller number of scenes would have helped. Small criticisms for a talented company, a collection of performers who will be the future masters of their art.
7 Fingers Traces Assembly Rooms, George St 7 Fingers explode onto the stage in a burst of lights and thumping bass. What is apparent from very early on is that not only are the performers incredibly physically adept but they also have a strong talent for relating to their audience and are all immensely likeable. The show centres on some pretty incredible circus skills, sometimes also managing to achieve moments of seamless interaction between this and the sort of engagement with character, narrative or emotion one would expect from ‘theatre’. The early dance showing a couple in love is the best example of this, with some utterly beautiful choreography that is only slightly interrupted by the female dancer’s back flip whilst standing on her partners hands receiving rapturous applause! There are some filler moments, like a game-show section that illustrates that this really isn’t theatre using circus skills – but in all honesty, it doesn’t pretend to be. There are good theatrical moments as mentioned, but mostly Traces is a great success because of the hugely entertaining and talented cast performing entertaining and skilled circus acts. A real crowd pleaser and a great show.
A Midsummer Night’s Tree DeanGardens A Midsummer Night’s Tree is a group of circus artists who make popular cabaret-style shows, sometimes outdoors. They employ aerial hoop, tissue, trapeze skills, breakdancing, singing, clown and live music. Beautifully set in the DeanGardens underneath the canopy of a noble tree, the space becoming more beautiful and more enchantingly-lit as night falls, A Midsummer Night’s Tree is an accessible entertainment which will probably have broad appeal. The main quibble is with the skill level, which, with the notable exception of a skilled break-dancing crew (one of whom also grapples with aerial to good comic effect), is rather low in comparison with other groups out there. The aerial work is unremarkable, although combining hoop work and live singing from the same performer is unusual. The old-fashioned nature of the piece is shown up by the antics of the clown, using bad patter and an invisible bike in routines that would have appeared dated in the mid-Seventies. However the crowd seems entertained enough, particularly by a well-executed mimed ping-pong game with a member of the audience. All in all, not outstanding, but a pleasant enough way to pass an hour.
Actors of Dionysus Bacchic Gilded Balloon Teviot Inspired by The Bacchae, Euripides’ classic tale of ecstasy and revenge, Bacchic draws parallels between the polydeistic worship culture of ancient Greece and today’s cult of celebrity. In a commanding solo performance Tamsin Shasha slips effortlessly between multiple characters, by turns exuding certainty and charisma as the Guru, and nervous disbelieve as staunch sceptic Maddie. With a strong script, scenography that is dramatic in it’s simplicity and beautifully incorporated aerial work; Bacchic is a theatrical gem not to be missed.
Amanita Muskaria Trip to Buenos Aries Assembly Universal A ghost-like figure floats on to the stage, looking vulnerable, wearing a large white hat. She cries out ‘Let me in’ and we pity her and want to protect her. Muskaria’s solo performance is wonderful, she is completely engaging and compelling to watch. As the piece progresses we see her mental health deteriorate. Losing herself in riddles, we witness her confusion over no longer owning a wallet and blaming those nearest and dearest. Physically her performance was intricate and thoughtful. As her mind deteriorated so did her physicality – she became stooped, her steps tiny and her frail hands slowly reaching up. But although the production was delightful, there were problems with the language – the piece spoken in Polish with surtitles projected on to a screen next to the stage. This was extremely distracting and made the viewing experience disjointed. Perhaps it would have been better to have kept the production in Polish without translation so that the audience could concentrate on Amanita Muskaria’s fascinating performance?
Andrea Cusumano and Central St Martins College of Art A Funeral for Don Quijote Rocket @ Demarco Roxy Art House Directed by Andrea Cusumano from Sicily; performed by Mira Rychlicka, who worked with Kantor, and several others – presumably from St Martins. The roughly-constructed aesthetic of the piece is pleasing, with several wheeled-on doors, bandaged masks and strings holding things together literally and figuratively. Rychlicka is compelling in the central role, and only speaking part, but as she only gives an occasional word or two in English it’s hard to keep track of the story. Elsewhere there are serious performance problems. The other performers are fully masked most of the time, but don’t seem to have considered the way masks need to modify physicality and the audience relationship. There is puppetry but it is perfunctory and frequently barely visible due to poor use of space and seeming lack of awareness of sightlines. The church space in the Rocket main house is challenging, but was badly used, so that we were craning to see much of the action. Most importantly, for a company who claim to be making object theatre, there was little sensitivity and decisiveness in the use of objects.
Andrew Dawson Leitmotif Aurora Nova It looks promising: a simple scenography – two screens, a hanging rope that ends in a big ball of twine, a table, a chair – and a lone performer, Andrew Dawson. It starts well: a brief introduction from Dawson, then found footage of a train journey from Bognor Regis to LondonVictoria. So far so good: the train journey as metaphor for the journey of life; the specific referencing of a childhood spent in an English seaside town; the symbolism of leaving the comfort of childhood in the motherland (Bognor) for the bright lights of the big city. It looks like this will be a piece mostly about Dawson’s relationship with his mother, a companion piece to the 2005 Total Theatre Award winner, Absence and Presence, which investigated his relationship with his dead father. Would that it were so! With a surprisingly hesitant delivery that seems to belie his vast experience as an actor, puppeteer and mime, Dawson veers from one shaky personal confession to another, the words often slipping out awkwardly, as if he is a little embarrassed by it all. There are odd movement sections that don’t seem to have a real reason to be there, and some rather better shadow puppetry and video sections. The material feels like an odd hotch-potch – and it is therefore interesting to learn afterwards that although a solo performance, this is a piece devised in collaboration with many other artists, each of whom have contributed a personal reflection on Dawson. So there have been many cooks in the kitchen – but therein lies the problem, as the show displays the design-by-committee lack of a guiding artistic vision, the voice of a strong director or dramaturg who knows when to say ‘keep it’ and when to say ‘ditch it’. Interestingly enough, the best moments all seem to be the ones relating to his mother – she is brought to life beautifully with just a pair of shoes and a jacket pulled over the head to become a dress. Often the best way to reach yourself is through other people, but perhaps Dawson has taken the wrong route in getting other people to respond to him rather than him responding to other people. Family memoir is often far more potent than the tiresome ‘me, me, me’ of autobiography, and should Andrew Dawson decide to ditch the outside views of him, and rework this piece into a reflection on his mother, it would be stronger for it. Dawson has proved that he c an find the poetic – the lyrical, the melancholic – in the everyday; to transpose the mundane minutiae of life into art. No doubt he can do so again!
Axis Theatre Company A Glance at New York Assembly Rooms Physically driven ensemble; choreographic theatre with a strong fusion of vocal and physical expression, which is almost operatic in feel… This work was bursting out of the tight confines of the Wildman Room at Assembly. It bristled with energy and absolutely rippled from the moment the ensemble catapulted from behind the simple red curtain to the final backwards retreat stage left at the end. The fusion of vocally strong and physically stylised and engaging performance from this confident ensemble was operatic in style and flowed in a liquid-like seamlessness, evoking the authentic sense of the raw, tatty and dangerous world of New York in 1848; this being an adaptation of a Victorian melodrama by Benjamin A. Baker. The way in which the ensemble were able to hold the material so clearly focused between them allowed the eye to shift and flit totally held in the varying degrees of tension created. Text and physicality really danced together and the vocal variations were striking. The design was rich and there was a quirky almost impudent used of a pantomimic 2D props.
Babolin Theatre and Gomito Productions The Quest for the Divine Bottle Bedlam Theatre Featuring a group of recently graduated sixth-form students, in the capable hands of Gomito productions, this is a surprisingly polished, professional piece. Featuring physically inventive storytelling supported by a hilarious script, these highly watchable performers show excellent ensemble skills. Empty but for a few old barrels, a suitably sparse stage sets the scene in 16th century France. Enter a ten-strong chorus of monks open to temptation, in this case more cartoon than Carthusian, bursting with scatological irreverence. They share the telling of Rabelais’ Gargantua between them, using physical storytelling, song, mime, and a healthy dose of silliness. While the concept and ideas are not original, the excellent ensemble breathe fresh life into them. Revolutionary bakers, rivers of piss and a class of Latin teenagers, this show has the sauciness of Chaucer and the wordsmithery of Blackadder. The central polemic of the threat that imagination poses to authority is somewhat crow-barred into the script and occasionally the storytellers lose their thread, leaving us wondering where it’s all heading. Likewise the end is brutally abrupt, though the journey has been one of sheer entertainment.
Benchtours The Psychic Detective (and those disappeared) Stagetruck at the Udderbelly Benchtours was founded in 1991 and since then they have toured Scotland, the UK, Ireland and mainland Europe with a mixture of new and classic works. The Psychic Detective is their first show specially commissioned for this new project, The Stagetruck, created to house multimedia theatrical illusions. The Edinburgh show is part of a tour throughout Scotland and the show will eventually be seen at the National Theatre in London. The Psychic Detective is theatrical film-noir homage to suspense thrillers and the classic detective story. The set design is truly remarkable and in a current trend of combining cinematic styles and theatre this is an excellent example of how the two styles can be fused together beautifully. Inside this small arena there is a window in a wall through which we watch the story unfold. With film and, lighting, sound, and vast set changes taking us from office to docks, this is a cinematic experience with live actors. However the over-loud sound made hearing the actors difficult. The script is also slightly clichéd with the suspense required for a thriller sadly lacking. Not yet an all-round great piece of theatre, but visually this is a beautiful and clever piece. A truly innovative and unique experience.
Big Dee Brothers Dee Tour Sweet ECA The Big Dee Brothers are a new company comprising two experienced male performers/clowns. Both are members of the surreally comic band Wevie Stonder. Dee Tour is an almost wordless comedy show of ramshackle mime, puppetry and daft illusions performed by ‘Fat Arab Dave’ and ‘English Rabbit Diddy’. It’s fun with great ideas in the making and a refreshing daftness, yet needs more work to make it completely presentable as a finished show. Planting the Dunk Botanic Gardens Quaker Meeting House A solo piece of performance poetry with projections of images by artist Linda Martin, this first production by a newly-formed company of established theatre professionals was a delicious linguistic confection of a show. David Malikoff’s beautifully measured and confident solo delivery of Mark O’Connor’s luscious, tropically verdant poetry gave real texture and depth to the words. Playing the poet himself as he battles with the elements to create a new Eden, the contrast between calculated restraint and explosive passion was well judged. A large part of the show’s charm lay in the balance it struck between an almost fantastical narrative and an ever-encroaching reality. The hero’s antagonists were cyclones, climate change, bureaucracy, but most of all, stubborn humanity, and the writing sank its teeth into the flesh of paw paws, mangoes and hardheaded Australian labourers alike. The production was proficiently lit, and though at times it was evident that a PowerPoint veteran had been over-indulging their love of visual effects, the projections of botanical artwork often complimented the storytelling with a magical resonance. This was a touching, invigorating, and human story of a man’s devotion to his craft, and the production itself was a testament to the company’s devotion to theirs.
Bill Aitchison in collaboration with Boris Kahnert and James Dunn 24/7/52 The Zoo, Southside Bill Aitchison’s performance is governed by a series of tape players, which are started at random and which each have an individual sound which repeats throughout the performance as a signal for a specific action. Thus, there are moments of silence and moments of absurd activity, such as when he makes a salad while washing his hair. The actions describe the chaos of modern living, which can be fast or slow and which demands us to take on different roles; that of the lover, the preacher, the domestic, the professional. It is a meditation on the relentless pace of time, and how it prompts and controls us. Here we are powerless. In the story of Genesis that Aitchison recites, it is God who creates time, and who has the power to end it with the flood… and as the weather forecaster he suggests the supremacy of nature over man. At times the performance feels like an exercise, but the exercise is an interesting one and Aitchison explores it with charm and playful deliberation.
Bind Productions A (Gay Disabled Transsexual) Love Story Told To A Ticket Inspector At AltonTowers Theatre Workshop The project was inspired by the experience of disabled actor Robert Softley when he was denied entrance to AltonTowers, unless accompanied by a carer. Softley, who plays himself in this piece, is an experienced professional actor, as is Raymond Short, the director of the piece who also performs in this ensemble of four. It is primarily a text-based piece, written by Stephen Keyworth, and although the issues are explored in a physically energetic manner, this physicality does not tell the story, nor is it integral to the exposition of the text. When denied entrance to AltonTowers, Robert, and his partner Nathan, tell the story of their relationship, and, in doing so, why the discrimination they are facing here is unnecessary and demeaning. The four actors all spend some time in a wheelchair on stage. Rather than impede their movement, this allows them to create some of the more exciting physical set-pieces of the show, including the simulation of a log-flume in the final scene. This is a stereotype bashing play in which the gay, disabled, transsexual couple of the title crusade against as many issues of discrimination as is possible in just over an hour. It is often hard to unpick the strands of contention; the couple find that there are no ramps up to the nudist beach, and the patients next to Nathan in the hospital in which he has his sex change operation are die-hard BNP. However, just as Robert wants to be judged on his actions, rather than his disability, we are encouraged to judge this play on its own merits, rather than as an earnest piece of issue based drama. It is funny and entertaining, and the domestic detail (Nathan keeps finding sugar puffs in the bath) relates this otherwise unorthodox relationship to any other love story with a happy ending.
blackSKYwhite Astronomy for Insects Aurora Nova A new show – well, it was made in 2001 but new to the UK anyway, apart from an odd work-in-progress outing to Glastonbury a few years back – from ‘alien circus’ blackSKYwhite, the company that previously brought us the extraordinary Bertrand’s Toys (winner of a Total Theatre Award in 2000). And yes, it’s another trip to a nightmare shadow childhood of sick games for sorry toys controlled by a demon puppet master. This time round, director Dmitri Ariupin’s demented dreamscape is acted out by four performers instead of just two, the line-up including the highly talented Scottish physical theatre performer, Al Seed. As always with this company, the limb-dislocating physical perversity of the choreography is staggering, matched by the dexterity of the performers. The sepia brown and black Gothic colour palette of Bertrand has been switched to an even more frightening mix of terrifyingly light clinical whites, electrifyingly bright neon pastels, and ludicrously loud primaries. Astronomy for Insects takes no prisoners. It’s an intense theatrical experience, a sensory onslaught of light and sound. For an hour and a half (it feels longer) our senses are mercilessly assaulted by these modern day exponents of post-Artaudian theatre of cruelty. On either side of the stage, enormous test tubes pulse with a sickening light show. The mostly electronic soundtrack gives way occasionally to a perverse cabaret number (although the choice of Tiger Lillies seems a little odd to a UK audience who will perhaps inevitably associate them with Shockheaded Peter). In a sort-of narrative of moving pictures, each more bizarre than the last, we are treated (if such terror can be called a treat) to a succession of startling images from a hellish nursery-cum-laboratory, in which a brave new world of hybrid creatures act out there desires. Frankenstein in Legoland.
Bob Downe Alive & Swinging Spiegeltent Bob Downe has been a big hit at past festivals with his over-the-top cabaret crooner persona. However, in this performance he was as fresh as a daisy, had the audience in the palm of his hand within the first few seconds of the show and kept them rolling in the aisles to the end. His dialogue was scattered with up-to-date Edinburgh references (he obviously reads the papers and travels on the buses) which kept the many locals in the audience in stitches. The backing band was superb, as was the support singer Pastel Vespa. This was a smooth, professional presentation which revelled in the foibles of the venue rather than be put off by them (he distributed sunglasses to those dazzled by the light streaming through the stained glass windows). This is the perfect show for this venue, and rather demonstrates ‘how to do it’.
Bob Karper Big in Japan (Three Steves and a Bob) Zoo A solo performance using multimedia, music and comedy –Big in Japan is a pleasant hour of Japanese culture, documentary film, Phillip Glass-esque piano, accordion playing, pleasing anecdotes and breakfast cereal. Karper’s conversational style sits well with the audience and everyone enjoys a free glass of Sake in the performance. It is a slight shame that when character acting Karper doesn’t master the accents he attempts but, after he openly apologises for this flaw (in Japanese), we forgive him and the story he ends on is touching. For the duration of the show Karper peaks at ‘amusing’ and some moments were a little slow, leaving the audience liking Karper himself more than his show.
Boy Who Cried Wolf Liberté Egalité Fraternité C Soco The oral history of Julian, a Jewish immigrant from the Ukraine, was used as the inspiration for this piece, based on his bold decision to oppose the oath of the Fatherland imposed on occupied France by reinstalling the call of the French Revolution in his shop window. The multi-skilled ensemble of five chart his life as a window dresser, his imprisonment and his subsequent escape through Europe to England, using mime and physical storytelling techniques with puppetry and song. A little episodic and under-developed, the piece suffered from an imbalance of skill and the slightly inconsistent abilities of the performers. Overall, the piece seemed to need more work and particularly an attention to the emotional content of the material.
Breathe Just Too Long A private house in Edinburgh A meeting place on a street corner, six of us gathered. Are we all ‘audience’? Are we being watched? A telephone call, instructions to enter the house opposite, an opulent hallway – mahogany banisters, old gold carpets. More instructions, a silent ascent to a flat, time to catch breath inside the door. The sound of Radio 4 from the next room: Nicholas Parsons’ Just a Minute. A spacious dining room, ceiling-to-floor windows, a solid wood table, six shaker-style straight backed chairs. One chair each. We sit, one of us receives the final telephoned instruction – we are to don the blindfolds in front of us on the table. And then? Sharing food or drink is a ritual – perhaps the origins of theatre, but without question the marking of rites of passage through our lives. The birthday tea, the teenage binge, the romantic date, the adult dinner party. Deprived of the sense of sight (for the most part), we witness echoes and snatches of these ritual meals through sound, touch, taste and smell. The grinding of black pepper hits your nose and ears, the slick of vodka on your lips, the smell of freshly laundered linen tablecloths and the swish of air as they flutter by, the feel of a hand on yours. All this punctuated by a cleaning and sweeping and re-laying of the table. It is a unique experience for everyone, as we are singled out for individual sensory experiences, and each in turn gets the occasional two-second respite from blindness, seeing what others can’t. Clever but not clever-clever; resourceful, carefully managed with due care and attention to detail, just the right amount of sensory information, leaving space for those all important other factors – memory and imagination. A challenge to form, and yet understanding completely the essence of the theatrical event – a shared experience reaching the universal through the individual. Good theatre, really good theatre!
Camille La Femme Du Cirque The Spiegelgarden Camille stands posed perfect and picturesque in the mild blue light. Her voice is soft and elegant, each word sung with perfect timing and emotional pitch. She is one of the finest female performers out there, with amazing theatricality and timing. Camille is utterly captivating as she pulls faces and purrs at the crowd; personally engaging every member of her captive audience. As the performance progresses she becomes more wild, roaring and stamping her feet, exploding with passion. Make-up runs and hair comes undone. She is ever present, there, in the moment of every song. And then this elegant lady transforms herself into a drunken tramp. Sneering and jeering, propped up against her chair… a must-see, exquisite performance.
Can of Worms Strange Bedfellows Underbelly Strange Bedfellows are a new ensemble comprising director Daniel Bye, and performers Nick Jesper and Paul Mundell. In the first half of Can of Worms, we encounter a pair of characters, one silent, the other a little too talkative; he’s a man who takes pleasure in his work, and no amount of clowning from his fatally innocent partner will, it seems, divert him. In part two, the subject under discussion is something the authorities would prefer to keep under wraps. But some evidence, inconveniently, is not easy to suffocate. One of ‘those’ photographs, which an army spokesman aims to deny out of existence, is continually rescued from the wastepaper basket by a hapless colleague. Engaged with its subject matter and performed with a rare energy, this is a show with great potential. The combination of dark material and assured comic delivery makes for uncomfortable and, ultimately, thought provoking viewing, and if this combination can at times be relentless, the skill of the performers and savagely uncompromising exploration of the territory persuade us to make allowances. The willingness of an Edinburgh audience to laugh may also have contributed to a sense that some energy was being expended which could better have been contained. If, with more development, and more breath, this successful coupling of scenarios discovered a more centred power, the evident intelligence of its creators could devastate.
Carol Titelman Lemons Are For Emergencies Only Gilded Balloon, Wee Room The solo piece is written and performed by Clare Titelman who has broken away from her more famous US television and film roles to perform this work. With the audience welcomed into the broom-cupboard-sized Wee Room with a party hat and a slice of lemon, this performance seemed set to be an intimate affair. This intimacy, however, is offset by the party-dress-clad Titelman’s performance, her lingering and often uncomfortable stares allow her to play the line between the intimate and awkward. Disarming us with her recognisable kooky American charm and then confusing it with her controlling yet bewildered gaze, Titelman’s character is marooned in the kitchen where she lives out her days patiently anticipating her birthday party. As the monologue progresses we come to understand the events that have caused her compulsive obsession. The enigma of Titelman’s situation is incredibly compelling, but though her repetitive and ritualistic wait has a flavour of Waiting for Godot, the all too quick revelation of character motivation crushes what could be poignant and haunting.
Charlie Harthill Special Reserve Greedy Scratchers Pleasance Courtyard At times Richard Marsh’s piece about the history of human beings approaches the poetic. The first creation story is vividly and rhythmically re-told and the discovery of fire is mesmeric. However, the tone is, at other times, way off the mark. The cheesiest gags of the show are reserved for a pantomime depiction of the birth of Jesus and the advent of Christianity, within the framework of the first theatre productions. The recurring motif is that of the barren woman. Her partner is the innovator, discovering spears and later hieroglyphics. Her father is the traditionalist who rejects progress is favour of the more solid present. However, it is the traditionalist who has fathered a child, enabling the human race to continue. The innovator has failed in the most fundamental of human advances. This dialogue between nature and science; evolution and intellect is resolved when the women becomes pregnant in the twentieth century by means of IVF or some similar treatment. It is unclear what point they are trying to make. Has man now conquered his own evolutionary progress? Ultimately the piece lacks focus, and detail in the areas where the ideas could be interestingly developed.
Chris Goode Hippo World Pleasance Dome The latest solo show from Chris Goode uses found text from a website called Hippo World, dedicated to hippo lovers everywhere; text which is edited in the sense of the artist making choices about which posted entries to pick, and placing them into blocks of text that form theatrical ‘Acts’ (or perhaps ‘Movements’ as Milan Kundera would have it), but with each chosen entry presented verbatim. So the Acts/Movements are delineated by the rise and fall of music and by a series of simple but effective ritual actions: Goode walks across to stage right to a shrine bearing a photo of the site’s founder, lights a candle, walks over to a mic-stand stage left and starts in with words. Chris Goode is a charismatic performer with perfectly timed delivery; there’s just the right amount of engagement with/detachment from the source material, and a carefully executed mix of humour and pathos. At the beginning, we are reminded of the Internet etiquette which dictates that capital letters equals shouting – so that’s what we get. The entries are just what we would expect from the good old interweb: jolly chatroom exchanges; cheery and enthusiastic endorsements and joining-ins; party poopers and exasperated denouncers; spam, porn and viral marketing – and eventually, ominously, blank emails. Of course none of this stuff is really about hippos – it is about people, and how they relate to other people, and how online life is ultimately as messy and mixed up and illogical and endearing and demoralising and illuminating as offline life. Hippo World is also an interesting exercise in the nature of theatre and theatrical structures – by taking seemingly mundane found material and sculpting it into a piece of cleverly staged and engagingly enacted theatre, Goode has once again proved himself to be a master of the form.
Christian Von Richthofen Auto Auto Pleasance Courtyard In the tradition of Stomp this show combines the skill of two musicians with the percussive capability of everyday objects. In this case it’s a Vauxhall Astra MK2, though by the end of the show you would be hard pressed to recognize it as such. Although there is a degree of virtuosity to the performers, Auto Auto is more a crowd pleaser than a work of art and fails to provide anything more than shallow spectacle, but on the night this was seen by Total Theatre, the audience was enraptured as Hamburg-based percussionist Christian von Richthofen and co-performer Rolf Clausen beat out strains of Bach, Benny Goodman, Tchaikovsky and Motorhead with the tools of a mechanic and their bare hands, finally bashing the car to a pulp in with axes, hammers and crowbars. This is catharsis for the Top Gear generation, but whether it’s art is another question.
CHO-IN Theatre The Angel and The Woodcutter C (Chambers Street) This is an ensemble piece fusing body movement with breath work, sound, music and mime. The show has been in development over the last two years. The company believes that language imposes limits on their audiences and the ‘absence of words creates a more genuine and direct form of communication’. Director Park Cheung-euy has, since 1998, merged traditional Korean masked dances and contemporary physical theatre – and from this CHO-IN was created using a core team of actors to develop his method. The Angel and The Woodcutter has a strong anti-war message. Adapted from a well known Korean folk tale CHO-IN have inserted a war into the original story to ‘explore the violence inherent in humanity and the endless cycle of sin and retribution people are capable of.’ Park also reveals the power and resilience of love that dwells within the human spirit. The passion of the performers on the stage and emotional involvement with the story and characters was incredibly moving. Through puppetry, shadow play, mime and dance set to beautiful traditional Korean music CHO-IN transported their audience into a completely different world. A dazzlingly show that deserves much praise. As well as the breathtaking story, the raw physical energy and performances, especially of Lee, Sang-hee (The Angel) should be applauded. This is seriously good total theatre. Orpheus Aurora Nova Known as Israel’s premiere visual theatre company, the group which comprises two main performers have toured all over the world, including extensive touring in the Far East. They employ elaborate sets and lighting and stage effects. Founded in 1995 by Idit Herman and Dmitry Tyulpanov, the group works mostly without words. Viewed from a badly-raked configuration in Aurora Nova’s downstairs space, Clipa Theatre’s highly visual interpretation of the Orpheus myth has invention but lacks precision so that potentially moving and compelling images are reduced to being dull and predictable. Pompous and monotonous synth music attempts to pump up the emotion and staging to little avail. Worst of all is the very old-fashioned slow-motion movement. The hall of Perspex mirrors looks cheap when it should look scintillating. Occasional touches show what this show could have been with more rigour - a strong sequence with the King of the underworld with a succession of paper masks with an ever-changing expression, and his ever-morphing body-shape; Orpheus playing the plastic leg of a mannequin as a saxophone. But by the time the powerful image of Orpheus revealing and playing a lyre (which covers his heart) emerges, we really don’t care anymore, as there has been no genuine emotion at work. The fourth wall remains intact and the piece remains solemn, self-important and cold.
Clownmime A Wish Assembly at Hill Street Dated children’s show from Korean company during which three clowns attempt to entertain a ‘handicapped’ girl who longs for snow… Getting beyond the nauseating opening moments in which a young girl in a wheelchair emotes – to a swelling orchestral sound – her vision of snow, before toppling pitifully at our feet; ignoring too the horrific sequence where the clowns themselves tip her up, dropping objects on her legs and bottom to prove she is in fact ‘crippled’ (accompanied by a hand gesture in chorus); we are left only with rubbish magic, a lot of desperate shouting at the audience (“OH MY GOD!”) as the terrible tricks and performances of mumming mediocrity unfold. Dreadful dreadful dreadful.
Decay Unlimited Cabaret Decay Unlimited Aurora Nova Cabaret by three Lecoq-trained performers. They met in 2001 and have worked on this show since 2005. It is made ‘with the complicity of’ Jos Houben… The good things about this show included fine singing, and Jofre Caraben’s dancing. The skills of all three performers were evident, and especially enjoyable was the murderous sheep sequence, the preposterous headgear and the hand-in-urn sketch. But the material felt very thin, all in all. There was far too much repetitive shrieking about decomposition, too many ‘comedy’ lack-of-arrivals, too many familiar routines, including an absolute nadir with a messy sketch about beauty products. For a show ostensibly about death, it all felt relentlessly trivial – the audience were kept waiting for a moment of actual fear or finality, but it never arrived. Too many of the cabaret sequences lacked endings – they just meandered on until the next thing interrupted. The elements of puppetry were shoddily jangly – a disappointment when there were other well-honed skills on show. The idea of a ‘decomposing’ cabaret, falling apart, and particularly the premeditated failure of all the audience relationships (soggy biscuits, singalongs that are obviously not going to happen) might seem daring but this is really just a safe option. The risk of failure is negated by indulging in it. And it’s hard not to think that things like comedy song parodies are being better done nearby every night – by comedians.
Dilusori Banari OldCollege Quad Dilusori are a company from Korea. They perform traditional Korean drumming. They also play various other instruments and dance. On the night seen, your reviewer was suffering from Fringe fatigue! It was raining and she was less than enthusiastic about the prospect of standing for an hour. But the moment Dilusori burst into the courtyard their energy instantly invigorated – the drumming echoing from the courtyard walls and resonating in my chest. As the performers beat out rhythms their bodies moved like possessed creatures in a frenetic ritualistic dance. Then, in contrast, haunting melodies would be played on flute or sung. At one point a woman tosses pink petals from a giant lotus and the children in the audience rush to collect the coloured tissue paper. As Banari concluded, the rain clouds cleared to reveal a bright blue sky, and the audience were lead in a giant spiralling conga line, throwing hats in the air and dancing along with the performers.
DO-Theatre Hangman Aurora Nova A Fringe success from this established Russian ensemble, firm favourites at Aurora Nova. It's high standard dance-theatre/mime and a delight to watch – although holds few surprises. Basically, it is exactly what we have come to expect of DO-Theatre. We are drawn into a darkly beautiful and melancholic twilight world, where a trio of dusty silent-movie clowns are sited within a surreal newspaper-covered landscape. Words and letters are everywhere: old directories become lampshades upon swinging lightbulbs, under which the three dress-coated protagonists act out a battle around the theme of ‘Hangman’, the word-game played out at the rear of the stage by a Puck-like trickster character who accompanies each letter change, and the disruptive effect that brings on the world of the ‘play’, with a gleeful dance. The fifth member of the ensemble is an onstage technician/sound mixer who also provides a ’Deus Ex Machina’ role, walking into the action occasionally to exact some change. Mostly this works but at one point we get taken right out of the world of the action into a hesitant spoken section which disrupts the flow – the sort of cringe-worthy postmodern trick that most companies with this much experience would have given up on years ago. But this one aberration is forgiven as the world we are presented with is enchanting, and charm and skills of the performers so evident.
Dulcinea Langfelder and Co Victoria Aurora Nova Victoria is a dance and text piece in which two characters examine aging and memory loss, often with a wheelchair as the third silent dancer. Beautifully performed, in the solo text sections, by Dulcinea Langfelder – completely convincing as a much older character, Victoria – is a gentle and sometimes compelling examination of the mind in decline. Its creators seem interested in working back from high points of confusion – woman and curtains somehow covered in shit or chocolate, both possibilities comic and horrifying - to discover from where, in the tangle of influences and half-remembered experience, they might originate. Scenographer Ana Cappelluto provides a clean design of white institutional curtains, on which shadow-play and projection segue into one another, resulting in a pleasing sense of bafflement. This smooth professionalism, however, can sometimes detract from the subject’s emotional punch. Bafflement should not, in such a context, be merely pleasing. Similarly when the able-bodied dancer rises to tango with her wheelchair, there is a predictability to the movement, and the possibility of reliance on a symbol-generated pathos. Perhaps because of a desire to retain a hold on coherence and humanity, the piece never quite finds its peak, with the result that we are given too many endings. Ultimately, Victoria provides gentleness and humanity, but not quite enough terror, in its portrayal of the darkness gathering at the edges of consciousness.
Eternus Rebellus Nocioception Zoo Southside Nocioception, the first piece from this new company, was a deeply unpleasant show about sado-masochism that blurred the boundaries between art and reality. Probably the most sexually explicit show at the Fringe, this two-person piece was spectacle for spectacle’s sake, a tacky, gratuitous mess, which smashed together various visual forms – film, dance, burlesque – and butchered them all. Had the acting not been resoundingly bad, had the technical execution not been so horrendously flawed, had the script not been such a meaningless footnote to the displays of actual bodily harm on show, then, and only then, might it have been something worthwhile. As it was, this cynical, nasty, amateurish freak-show was one of the very lowest moments of your Total Theatre reviewer’s festival experience.
Extant Effing and Blinding Cabaret Theatre Workshop The whole performance takes place in the dark: four visually impaired performers lead numerous sketches within a cabaret format. There's plenty of song and jokes throughout the night… We are invited to sit in tables arranged in the space so as to resemble a cabaret, and after the announcement to turn off our mobiles and to hide anything that emits light, the theatre lights are off for good. We hear a few sound recordings expectedly within the cabaret context until a live keyboard sound interrupts it and a voice claims: "let the absurdity begin". From this point onwards there is quite a random mix, from punk songs about a blind person's daily routine to (Monty) Pythonesque sketches of an estate-agent eating snake. Your Total Theatre reviewer was hit in the head a few times as the performers sung songs at top volume in his ear, and enjoyed orgasmic groans behind his back, which really just added more flavour to the risk-taking 'experience'. The commentary is very clever at times, but it is weakened by the cheap jokes along the way. It is exciting to experience work made and managed by visually impaired professionals.
Fecund Theatre Special Assembly Universal This piece has a mesmeric quality that draws you into a powerful exploration of sexual desire. It is a bold enquiry into BDSM/CBT (Bondage Domination Sado Masochism/Cock and Ball Torture) resonating with humanity. Despite the taboo subject it is a love story sensitively revealed through the skill and research of two compelling performers. As we enter the space, the first image reveals Steve Fox (John Keates) finding limited satisfaction from dancing in his living room. This is abruptly interrupted, his “I am bored of all this” seemingly banal. Enter Emily Cross, Geisha-like in pink unsexy dressing gown with a black box of ingredients and instruments for the ensuing sex games: ‘Poison Spray’, ‘Deep Heat’, a huge red dildo to make him feel inadequate, a large black dildo strapped to a red belt for her to …… and so on. Finally a love letter is placed in the middle of the ritual table. Love is central to these games of torture, proof of manhood and fidelity. Hate is played out towards the threshold of orgasm that finds deep love on the other side. Humanity is revealed in the struggle to understand the need for power and domination. Progressing from “Hello Boyfriend, Hello Girlfriend” through to the final game where Mr and Mrs Fox contemplate what they will lose if the games stop once their baby is born, one suddenly is awoken from the fantasy: these are just two ordinary people who worry about what their families might think. This intelligent, carefully crafted piece of work challenges the viewer in an uncompromising way. The safety of the game allows for deep consideration of the core of our existence. Fear is fronted and the final climax and fallout leaves the audience with a deeply tender image of intimacy.
Flying Carpet Theatre A Day in Dig Nation Pleasance Courtyard This solo show explores a day in the life of Rex, an office drone who dreams his life away and thus takes us with him. Flashing between a bunker during a nuclear holocaust or a computer game of life; plagued by visions of a dystopian world… with all the technology onstage this could be a great show, but while it looked good, it wore on and on really going nowhere. A gutsy performance, but it all amounts to nothing.
Free Fall Theatre Not For Sale Pleasance Courtyard Not For Sale is a physical theatre production using dance and puppetry devised and performed by six actors who formed the company for this, their first production. The illegal sex trade is a difficult subject and yet Free Fall Theatre tackles it head on with sensitivity and clarity. This story of lost women utilises intricate physical imagery, truly engaging naturalism and beautifully delicate puppetry. The six actors’ bodies tangle and untwine in highly sexualised choreography. Male hands smeared across faces; women behind transparent Perspex at first trapped, and then flying free. The space is tiny and as the performers flip and turn around one another a foreboding sense of claustrophobia ensues. The surrounding cheap neon strip lights illuminate the incredibly vile characters played by the male cast members. We meet Natasha – and yet all the women are called Natasha. Leaving her daughter in her home country she finds comfort in her doll. Standing on the flat of her hand the doll becomes animated by two actors and slides down her leg. In this puppet we see the women’s hopes, dreams and fears – simple but engaging. However, as the play progresses the rhythmic language in the movement sequences becomes predictable. This is not helped by an equally repetitive sound track. But overall, an incredibly moving piece of theatre with beautiful low-tech theatrical techniques, complemented perfectly by the pattering of rain on the venue roof.
Fuerzabruta The Black Tent With a strong circus slant and plenty of pizzazz, this show is brought to Edinburgh by the production team that had created De La Guarda, the circus-theatre spectacle that rocked the Roundhouse a few years back. Like its predecessor, it is an all-sensory piece of visual/physical performance on a grand scale employing a vast range of technical effects (including, in this case, an enormous overhead swimming pool). A large cast of performers, technicians and facilitators employ light, sound, haze, water and stage mechanisms on an epic scale to produce a piece which comes in somewhere between Cirque du Soleil and Derevo. Enjoyable and appreciated (by both reviewer and audience – this has been the biggest selling show on the Fringe this year, despite the £25 price tag on the tickets). But although much skill was present in the staging and aerial work, it was a bit of a triumph of form over content. As far as the dramatic core is concerned that, though thin, was actually better - with a real sense of a personal odyssey through some kind of urban nightmare.
Gemma Brockis/Silvia Mercuriali Pinocchio Aurora Nova We are three – strangers issued with a set of written instructions. Someone becomes group leader by default. Eventually the correct lamppost is identified. A car screeches around a corner, something/somebody is flung to the ground. A wild-eyed woman in a black dress approaches, shows off her driving licence, gives each of us a calling card that says merely ‘Driver’ and each a brown paper package, tied up with string. We are invited into the rubbish-strewn car. Driver drives. Her passenger is the former thing-on-the-road, another young woman, nervous and jittery, dressed in chavvy tracksuit top, hair in a messy scrunch at her neck. They don’t inspire confidence, this Thelma and Louise couple locked into some sort of dreadful relationship we can only guess at. There is much unfolding of maps, stopping and starting, screeching of tyres, sudden braking, arguments about directions. The driver’s passenger frequently gets out and storms off, comes back to start over, takes off her seat belt to lean out the window to shout at other drivers or passers-by. ‘Audience participation’ in a whole new dimension as we double park outside chip shops, screech to a halt in petrol stations. We stare out bemused blokes in trucks at the lock up garage lot. Or look away. Or hide our head in our hands. Or give a little whistle… Frequent fiddling with the radio – we hear snatches of news bulletins about abducted people in a car heading towards the coast (and yes, we really are being driven down a highway towards the sea) and beached whales. Whales! Ah yes, Pinocchio… Less a ‘version of’ than an ‘homage to’ Collodi’s dark and terrible tale, an episodic on-the-road story of the journey towards adulthood, the search for what it means to be human, the exploration of the choices we make between immediate gratification and moral responsibility. This is the antithesis of Disney, yet if that is all you have experienced of this story you’ll recognise the elements: there is a blue fairy, fairground music, a long nose. We grow silly animal ears. Oh, and true to the original, the cricket gets it. How to respond? Discomfort, shock, surprise, fear, excitement, boredom. Hate it while it’s happening, love it afterwards… We know it isn’t for real but it feels like it is. Hey, that’s theatre for you!
GiaNic Group, The Fruits of Life Rocket@Demarco, Roxy Art House This show is a textbook example of how new technology should not be used in theatre. This Italian piece is subtitled; it needn’t be because the plot is so simple and heavily visually aided that a 3-year-old could cope with the language barrier. A bad soap story ensues, raising the question of whether this show should even be on the stage as the company’s attempts to make it look like a low budget TV series made your reviewer wish she had a remote control. Much of the story is repeated alongside the action as a video. The company have done away with a set design in favour of filming the couples on a cheap and unrealistic naturalistic background, of a park, or a boat. This was met with laughter from the audience although the company did not seem to be portraying their work with any irony. A show worthy of a cable TV programme
Gilded Balloon Productions and Drags Aloud The Sound of Music Drag Show Gilded Balloon Teviot Absolutely what it says on the tin. An established piece by an established company of six, comprising Sound of Music dialogue and musical numbers mimed and danced with appropriate borrowings from Cabaret/Priscilla Queen of the Desert etc. If you don’t care for this sort of thing then clearly do not go. If you are sentimentally attached to the Sound of Music avoid like the plague. Given these givens, this is very good show of its sort, deliciously louche and tacky with some excellent campery and wicked asides. The company are uniformly good and fun – they come in all shapes and sizes and are subsequently an awesome sight when dressed (as for the Eurovision Song Contest version of one of the numbers) in identical Technicolor Shirley Temple style outfits. The actual plot, somewhat abused but nevertheless present, keeps the thing on the move and the borrowings (how do they get all the rights?!) slot in nicely and allow for more extensive glitz. The cleverness is the perfection of the medium. The costumes, the breathtakingly tawdry staging, the antediluvian hoofing create a real Danny La Rue meets Almodóvar ambience.
Hard Graft Theatre Co. Coast to Coast Underbelly, Belly Laugh Hard Graft walked 216 miles from Bangor in Wales to Boston in Lincolnshire with no food, money or accommodation performing a show about their travels in exchange for their living requirements. With a stage adorned with photos from their trip the authentic nature of this experience yielded great potential for an observed look at region life across the UK (instantly reminding your Total Theatre reporter of Lone Twin’s ‘Nine Years’). However, instead of a genuine account of their travels the pair gets lost in surreal comedy and endless gags which though amusing completely undermines what is initially compelling. The result is a collection of un-insightful stereotypes rather than the detail of the individuals who offered them shelter which could have provided a more inspiring and original account.
Hayan Theatre The Voice of Things - Toilet Paper Underbelly Belly Button This is a solo performance from Hayan Theatre, a Korean physical theatre company formed by the show’s director/co-deviser, using puppetry, dance and physical theatre… The stage is littered with rolls of toilet paper. They are piled to the sides and hang from the backdrop. In the centre is a mound of paper, and from here performer Chiara De Palo begins the show. It is immediately clear that she is a competent performer as we see her flex and contort her body. There is an air of childlike investigation in the way she plays skittishly with the streaks of white paper, rolling and tearing them with gleeful abandon. As the stage is investigated, hints of a storyline involving a little girl and a lost dog begin to surface. In telling this story De Palo manipulates the toilet paper to divide the space or to create puppets with which to work. All of the (many) devices are clever and yet as an audience we find ourselves very much left on outside. Almost every skit involving the toilet roll is inventive and in places beautiful but fail to either progress the plot or to justify existing as scenes in their own right. Whenever a moment of beauty appears it is whisked away before we have a chance to marvel, or before it can develop. It is a wonder therefore that some sections remain agonisingly slow. It almost feels as if The Voice of Things is a reduced version of a longer show, with no scenes removed, but all of them shortened. On a physical level, the pitch of the performance seems to be somewhat stifled despite moments of humour and passion. The main reason for dissatisfaction with this show is that all the composite parts are very good: the performer skilful, the sound complementary, the devices effective and the show concept simple but intriguing – yet it is a show in which the whole is less, not more, than the sum of its parts. In short, this show should have been a little gem but transpired to be at its best charming, and at its worst a little bit damp.
Horizon Arts My Filthy Hunt Zoo The opening sequence of this show saw the four actors, two men and two women, strip off their clothes until they stood in only their black underwear, a state of undress maintained until the play’s conclusion. This scene, which culminated in a sort of aggressive communal pole-dance on a clothes-rail, was typical of a production of little emotional depth. Angry, confrontational, but ultimately vacuous, it used nudity as a mask for good writing or accurately observed characters. Emotion here was painted in primary colours, without the mixtures or gradations necessary for it to feel real. The action revolved around a faceless saviour, Marvin, played at different times by each of the actors, who ultimately united the other characters in a sort of resigned hope. With only snatches of information as to Marvin’s nature, and little more about any of the other characters, the audience was left grasping for any kind of narrative arc. Some comic moments were physically impressive, but an unheralded leap into cod-philosophy (‘What is the meaning of life?’ asked one character, earnestly) was simply embarrassing, and the production’s dance elements displayed as much thought and significance as a pop music video. Like the show as a whole, they were flashy, fleshy, and all but empty of dramatic interest.
Hourglass Spread Zoo Southside Visually intriguing, this was a physical theatre/dance theatre piece about the various relationships between women and food, performed by an all-female cast of three. It excelled in its most extreme physical moments – a woman held back from some forbidden fruit literally by her corset strings – and in its aggressive vocal set-pieces. These moments were sadly limited, however, the production erring as it did on the dance side of dance-theatre, and descending, towards its conclusion, into clichéd comedy set pieces such as a slow-motion food fight. Your Total Theatre reporter enjoyed a brave moment when one of the three actors, wearing a comedy pig nose and stripped to her underwear, wobbled her body-fat with a magnetically defiant vigour. The show’s exceedingly messy denouement, a dance number in which the now pink-wigged and pouting performers ritually covered themselves in syrup, cocoa and icing sugar, while stiletto-tottering or writhing about in the mess on the floor, was a comic spectacle, but not one with the political or cultural clout it seemed to claim. These silent automaton Barbie-dolls were a poor substitute for the vocal, impressive women of the show’s beginning, and this ending a sorry waste of the actors’ evident talents.
Icarus Theatre Collective Eugene Ionesco’s The Lesson Assembly at Hill St Icarus are an emerging-to-established company, producing since 2003. As a collective comprising an artistic director and three producers, they provide an interesting company model, providing a rare opportunity for producers to cut their teeth. There is a widespread UK tour booked for this production post-Fringe, with the current cast of three. This is a solid, traditional production of this rarely-performed Ionesco classic. The strong cast is enhanced by an accomplished performance by the Maid (Julia Munrow) although marred occasionally by the Pupil’s over-acting. But the sound track detracted rather than added to the action onstage, and the failure to exploit the play’s comedy reduced the contrasting impact of the ensuing tragedy. Although a faithful production of the play, the end was flawed by a misplaced politicisation and by its failure to recreate the perfectly circular structure.
Impetuous Kinship The Lost Thing Underbelly The show has been adapted from the original book by Shaun Tan by the director Marcia Carr and features a very strong ensemble of four. The company’s tagline is ‘hot-headed interdisciplinary performance’ which is a perfect description of the high physical energy show. Impetuous have created a strange, imaginative world where lost things mean a potential threat to a society of conformists. In this world Shaun, a young boy, finds a lost thing and battles parents, lifeguards and train conductors in a quest to discover what it is and where it belongs. It is a colourful mixture of physical theatre, music and quick-witted dialogue. Supporting the main character Shaun, the other three actors create a variety of comic characters in a set where suitcases become chairs and a mop is a kite. The raw playful energy of the cast was wonderful and infectious. They quickly involved the audience with clever and charming tricks. The audience become part of the show through the loaning of pens, being photographed with the cast and holding their paperwork. However, there are problems with the acoustics of the space. Whilst the cavernous setting of the Big Belly enhances the concept of the Lost Thing, the heavy combination of music and fast dialogue was often swallowed by the space and sadly lost.
Insect Circus Society The Insect Circus The SpiegelGarden This is a family-friendly show with fabulous costumes and moments of hysterically funny insect acrobatics. It’s a brilliant concept that unfortunately falls a little short of being great in performance. A lack of energy from the ringmaster as well as his apparent inability to remember what was about to happen meant that from the start we couldn’t relax into this make-believe world. There are some fun moments: the first and last aerial dance of Ephemera the mayfly, the wasp-tamer and the crazy Russian dark arts lady (both played by Marisa Carnesky). However, these good moments are too few!
Invisible Theatre Joanna Jazz Bar This four hander by an ensemble of student/emerging artists was written by Neil Brand and centres around the history of a piano and the romantic stories said piano has witnessed. Joanna tells the story of a grand piano called – of course – Joanna. We learn of the love affairs she encounters and the secrets she holds. Translated from radio to stage, this is a fine piece of theatre, made even better by a grand piano played live to accompany the action. Joanna materialises first as a young girl, narrating the action from the viewpoint of the piano’s opinions and feelings. It’s an engaging idea and a confident performance. It was most interesting to see how mood was shifted by the styles of playing explored. The cast embodied this well, using a range of musical explorations of emotion – playing with lust, anger and loss. This was an extremely enjoyable performance in the relaxed and peaceful atmosphere in The Jazz Bar.
Jammy Voo Something Blue Underbelly Belly Button Something Blue is a devised piece by a young company made up of five Lecoq-trained female performers, using cabaret, singing, clowning, puppetry and character-based comedy. The show is guest directed by Angela de Castro. It was excellent to see a young female company perform such skilled clowning! In the world of Jammy Voo, Red Riding Hood and Wolf date, Rapunzel (age seventy) is still waiting for her prince and middle class ladies sing rap. The five extremely adept female clowns play out women’s true desires when it comes to falling in love. Not only is this show hilarious but also deeply moving. A girl stands by a telephone awaiting a call. Her movement is simple but we feel her longing. The highlight of Something Blue is the relationship playing out between Miss Red Riding Hood and Mr Wolf. Beginning with a hysterical dinner date and ending with Red sewing up her broken heart. Mr Wolf is a head puppet and interaction is excellent, equally so is Mr Wolf’s physicalisation. On the down side, the show is very episodic and lacking a strong sense of narrative. Scene changes are performed by a narrator/stage hand – it would be interesting to see this piece develop so there is no need for this character and scenes sit together more easily. But a fantastically funny and loveable show – Total Theatre is looking forward to seeing what this comic crew do next.
John Moran John Moran and his neighbour, Saori Aurora Nova John Moran is a protégé of Phillip Glass, and a contemporary of Jeff Buckley (as we find out after Moran tells of his part in the singer’s death). This man is famous for creating gigantic operatic performance art, collaborating with Uma Thurman and Iggy Pop. Tonight’s self-referencing performance begins as an analysis of his worst performance ever – which happened the previous night. The neighbour Saori is absent (she is injured and unable to perform – this is genuine, not a theatrical device, although perhaps causing bemusement for some members of the audience who are perhaps struggling to differentiate between ‘the performance’ and the ‘performative reflection on the performance’) so Moran takes us through excerpts of his mesmerising mime-soundscapes, bringing on Sylvia from Rotozaza to help in a slightly shambolic medley of Moran’s vast back catalogue. But Moran’s Burroughs-like appearance and kind humour seemed to keep it all running along – although I was plagued with one question once the show had come to an end. Why?
Jonathan Kay An Audience With Jonathan Kay – Fool! clubWEST @ Three Sisters The conceit is the traditional Elizabethan fool (e.g. the Fool in King Lear) transposed to the modern day. Kay comes on stage in a fool’s cap and intersperses what seem to be entirely random moments of tomfoolery with more serious comment on the divide between comedy and tragedy. Kay calls himself a sit-down tragic, as opposed to a stand-up comic. As a traditional fool trying to make it on the Fringe, he comes up against some opposition, namely that people expect him to be funny. The fools Shakespeare created for Robert Armin blur the line between comedy and tragedy and this is what Kay aspires to. Unfortunately his grasp of tragedy is not profound enough to make up for the lack of gags, and half the audience left midway through, disappointed. He demands energetic audience participation while affecting a melancholy which fails to be motivational. He had given up on his audience by the end of the show, and we had given up on him.
Julian Fox You’ve Got to Love Dancing to Stick to It Pleasance Courtyard Your Total Theatre reviewer admits to being a scratch-night victim. There is an energy and rawness to scratch performance that companies often, it seems, struggle to recapture in finished work, leaving the original audience hankering for that elusive might-have-been performance. When Julian Fox performed an early version of this piece it was delightful in its combination of innocence and integrity, missed in this re-worked version. Moreover, there is a promise in the title – and in that early performance – which, when not realised, leaves a small sense of loss. The piece is not about dancing, not about a love of something so strong that it transcends convention. Here, Fox – or the persona Fox inhabits – is still astray from convention; a devotee of the Brockwell Park Lido, an enthusiastic amateur artist, a man with a messy flat. All intriguing, if slightly enervating, in its low-key delivery and off-key comedy. We are not sure whether what we see is funny, or tragic, or neither. It is ultimately an unsatisfying experience, which is perhaps the point. On Wonderland Underbelly Baby Belly A lyrically scripted solo piece on childhood, mental illness and the painful route to love. The fifth production from Kandinsky, a company formed in 2005 to ‘bridge the gap between art and science’. The sparse set for this extended monologue fitted with the emotional tone of the story being told, the rusting steel bath that dominated the set an apt metaphor for a childhood without the warmth of parental love. But whilst Kerry-Jayne Wilson’s control of rhythm and pace was impressive as the character Moia, the emotion in Gavin O’Carroll’s writing did not ring true. The theatrical potential of the mental condition to which the show’s title refers, Alice in Wonderland Syndrome, was left curiously unexplored, its introduction and thematic reappearance a little too subtle to have any lasting impact. A little more imagination might have yielded a show that was visually as well as aurally stimulating. The dripping dankness of the venue contributed to the show’s pervasive idea of captivity, but this was a production trapped by its form. Without the incisive writing needed for a successful monologue it was confined to being interesting, never compelling.
Karbido Stolik (The Table) Aurora Nova Karbido are a Wroclaw-based ensemble of musicians who have designed their own table as a complex musical instrument which creates a huge variety of sounds, melodies and moods. The sung voice is also employed through radio microphones. The company have created a marvellously complex musical world from the bare surface of the tabletop. As the show starts, four of this company of five musicians sit with great concentration around the eponymous table of the piece. The piece begins with a game involving thrown razor blades which stick into the table and create the initial musical notes. The microphone-based technology, winking at us from under the table, is nicely tucked away allowing the audience to concentrate on the tension and suggestion between the performers as the drummed and bowed music moves between four distinctive sections - East, South, West, North. There are lovely moments when the beautifully composed music subsides and we are left with everyday tabletop activities- bored drumming fingers, a spun coin, a mimed typewriter. The Polish folk songs work very well, as do the African rhythms and colours of the ‘South’ section. The ‘West’ is the least satisfactory, as the company reach for American English song that can sound stilted and culturally too far from where the soul of this ensemble lies. Given a larger budget, the company could perhaps invest in a revolve, since each section of the audience is stuck with the back of at least one of the performers throughout the piece’s duration. The climax of North, in which a paper boat nestles next to a candle, conjures up powerful images of a frozen north threatened by global warming; and indeed the music is so suggestive that it takes you on a unique and far-roaming journey over the surface of our planet. The surface of a humble table, on the other hand, will never seem the same again.
Kath Burlinson/The Weird Sisters The Mother’s Bones Underbelly A 45-minute sole performance piece of physical theatre, combining theatre, movement, visual art, music and song. Kath Burlinson is an established performer and choreographer who co-founded The Weird Sisters Theatre Company in 1997. This piece was conceived by Kath with Paul Oertel and Nancy Spanier and directed by Matt Peover. The production received support from Escalator East to Edinburgh – an initiative to helps artists and arts organisations raise their profile and perform to new audiences at the Edinburgh Fringe. Unfortunately, Kath Burlinson’s performance was prone to melodrama and over-sentimentality. Devoid of a narrative, structure or choreography, the production seemed to turn upon itself in a self-referential vacuum of random vignettes. In addition, the production and technical values were poor, with a limited and insufficient lighting design and poor sound cutting, which detracted even further from the performance. The action was ambiguous and repetitive and although the performance was carefully crafted and intense, the production failed to communicate its stated aim to tell the story of three generations of women.
Kristin Stone Entertainment Inside Private Lives Pleasance Dome Curiosity about the lives of the famous does not only support Hello! and other celebrity magazines, it seems, but also Fringe performances. Every day Inside Private Lives presents impersonations of controversial American figures and encourages the audience to interact with them. (The show consists of solo pieces that are rotated due to the short festival time slot: on the day of Total Theatre’s visit 4 characters out of 12 were presented – Eileen O’Connell as Brownie Wise, Kristin Stone as Christine Jorgensen, Adam LeBow as Elia Kazan and David Shofner as David Koresh.) Appealing to the curiosity of their spectators by offering them the chance to influence what aspects of their lives are explored could be seen as an interesting (and potentially popular) concept if the sales of magazines are anything to go by, but in the theatre it proves less successful: asking questions about the lives of these figures in front of an audience seems to dampen the interest in gossip, while the format chosen does not provide any more profound insight into their lives.
Kubik Producciones M3 Underbelly Baby Belly The company comprises Fernando Sanchez- Cabezudo (actor), Jorge Sánchez Cabezudo and Miguel Ángel Rodríguez de Cía (script writers and film directors). M3 combines mime (described by the company as ‘gestural humour’) and filmed sequences. The concept of the show is highly interesting and original: after a film sequence of property ads (and prices!), the performer arrives at his new home, an m3 sized box, replete with wallpaper and a golden door handle. The everyday activities in his living space, such as washing himself and his clothes, or having a small party are, however, severely restricted by the limited space. The comedy introduced by the disproportion of the space and its inhabitant is continued by clever use of mime and filmic techniques, such as the quick cuts that introduce an ever-increasing number of party guests in the film. The transformation of the performer into the fly he has hunted and then swallowed is not only a funny allusion to Metamorphosis, but also particularly well acted. These moments are, however, offset by the tendency to repeat actions more often than necessary and at times to rely on rather obvious jokes.
Les Enfants Terribles The Terrible Infants Pleasance Courtyard Terrible Infants tells a series of quirky moral fables, centred on Tilly, who tells terrible tales. The show is slick, well organised, tidily performed, varied, with ensemble acting, puppetry, shadows, live music and a very pretty and handily versatile set. There is a neat narrative conclusion that makes sense of the episodic structure. However, too often action is illustrative of verbal storytelling and there is a big problem with the material: the stories are mainly cloyingly moralistic, and often overstretched in the telling (especially the musical numbers). The text is pompously alliterative. There’s a great moment where we hear Tilly experimenting with cats, to check if they really have nine lives, and a couple of quickly-related grim deaths, but otherwise it’s all quite drearily wholesome. So, gradually your Total Theatre reviewer realised that this show is more or less Improbable’s Shockheaded Peter, but without the edge or the agony. And where’s the pleasure in that?
Lia Rodrigues Companhia de Dancas Incarnat Aurora Nova The only sounds are the shrieks and wails and sighs and gasps of the dancers, or the slap of the bodies against the ground, For the most part naked and covered in ‘blood’ (tomato ketchup, stored in and dispersed from condoms – the purchase of which items in enormous quantities apparently caused great consternation to the shopkeepers of Edinburgh), this dozen-strong company of fit (in all senses of that word) young Brazilians dance out a response to Sontag’s Regarding the Pain of Others. The aim, according to the programme notes, being to confront the brutal realities of life – possibly as witnessed in the company’s home city Rio de Janeiro The irony, though, is that Sontag’s book ultimately rejects the notion that witnessing graphic and violent images makes us empathetic to the pain of others. The constant bombardment of images of war zones, of news stories of rapes and murders, probably makes us less, not more, likely to appreciate and understand the pain of others. Seeing real violence as visual spectacle is, ultimately, dehumanising. This of course is not real but stage violence that we witness in Incarnat. Yet at what point does something cross the reality barrier? At what point does something become pornographic rather than be a comment on pornography? How does an audience respond to the sight of a woman lying, legs splayed, on a stage floor, as men on all fours, barking like wild dogs, rip her underwear off with their teeth? As MC5 – or was it Eldridge Cleaver? – might have said: ‘you're either part of the solution or you're part of the problem’. Incarnat, your Total Theatre reviewer would argue, buys into the problem, offers no solution.
Lost Vagueness Club Vague 5 Queen Street Despite problems at the start of the Fringe and relocation to a new venue, Lost Vagueness managed to get their act together eventually, producing a top notch and highly entertaining new variety/cabaret bill, presented within their trademark dress-to-impress nightclub setting that included a casino, DJs and dancing – albeit a somewhat diminished version of their usual extravaganzas in London and Glastonbury. There was magic, illusion, comedy dance, aerial – all sorts, and all of a high standard, with quality comperes like showman extraordinaire Matt Fraser (seen in the first week) and Australian operatic diva Ali McGregor (seen in the second week) adding that extra special touch. The glitzy high standard regular line-up included the marvellous magician Paul Zenon; the irrepressible Perverted Turkeys – two women clown/dance/live art performers whose outrageous acts include a naked-but-for-rubber-bathing-caps-and-goggles synchronised swimming number set to Bohemian Rhapsody – and the very talented Bees Knees, another two-woman act who specialise in superb renditions of character dance and eccentric performance classics, including a nifty girl-on-girl Charleston and a tongue-in-cheek Egyptian sand dance. Glamorous and glorious.
Magic Theatre Company Casa Azul C Soco This piece on the Mexican artist Frida Kahlo and her husband Diego Rivera is a well told and occasionally striking biography. The cast of three play Frida, Diego and (less effectively) a Mexican Day of the Dead style figure who also embodies others in the story – Trotsky, Frida’s sister etc. With an omnipresent bed on stage – the site for Frida’s orthopaedic treatment which becomes her personal prison – the cast use music, movement and spoken text to tell Frida’s rich but harrowing story. This is well done, but the weakness is much of the floating performances and the clumsiness of some of the spoken interpolations (“This now brings us to the spring of 1928”). Not perfect but a good attempt, with its heart in the right place.
Martin Bonger Tomas Pape Underbelly Baby Belly A devised theatre piece reverse engineered from a short audio recording. Successful by the measure of its own ambitions; it’s like being led by the hand through the woods: strange and disorientating, but also in a way unerring. A troupe of less-than circus performers take in Tomas Pape, whose circus feat is that he remembers… he’s not sure what. Something. The opening sections are strong, essentially character vignettes, but in the later stages Tomas Pape runs away and any sort of propulsive thrust goes with him. It becomes a little anesthetised. Still, it’s satisfying in the final moments, when everything collapses down to the original inspiration, and it’s not lacking in intelligence or heart or confidence. We just need to go a little bit further into the woods.
Maximum Crew Assembly Rooms The Crew (from Korea) consisting of b-boys and a couple of pop & lock guys who had a kind of clown dynamic/character. Very, very high skill all round—pretty sure one of the Crew was a guy who b-boys under the name The Darkness and who is renowned as an upper body strength monster. It’s been a while since I saw people on stage enjoying themselves so conspicuously. The show was open to the possibilities of its own slight cheesiness (shiny glittery golden suits, dramatic choral music, &c), neither trying too hard to work against that nor to cancel it out other than through a continuous display of physical virtuosity. Not theatre really. Competitive b-boying I think has a fluid exchange of ideas and attitudes and styles—whether in a spirit of antagonism or mutual invention, mimicry or communication—that is a mix of theatre and art and gamesmanship. But this was a showcase, part-choreographed, generating its excitement from the charisma and skill of the dancers taken as individuals rather than from a (inherently theatrical) combination or clash of personalities.
Men of Steel Assembly at George Street A New Zealand Company bringing their first show to the Fringe – an engaging episodic object animation performance for families, loosely focussed through kitchen equipment and food… The table top is transformed to a slightly sinister looking black-rubber sheathed kitchen surface (the floor and walls are rubber coated too) for this food-flying extravaganza which left the little ones gleeful but left your Total Theatre reviewer cold. Three chefs flamboyantly disappear behind the table-top – their extended fingers the last things to vanish. The scene is set for a high energy, mess-heavy boisterous object animation show. Driven by an overamplified soundtrack of cultural reference points from Jaws to the moon landings which often substitutes narrative explanation, the show bounces through its surreal episodes – through space to a sort of steel man (read gingerbread cutter) paradise. The manipulation was often crude and uninspired, relying on the surprise in presenting objects transformed rather than engaging us with their activity. Although the performances were strong, their warmth drawing you in, ultimately the show failed to really get cooking.
Moonhag Something Fishy Pleasance Courtyard Enter the fishless town of beaver! And leave happy. The best friends Daisy and Petunia (Liz Hague and Kate Mooney) arrive in Beaver by boat to find all is not well in town. With obvious comparisons to The League of Gentlemen, this brilliant piece is a showcase of comic timing and face pulling as Mooney and Hague demonstrate all the physically repugnant people of the town as the dark secret of Beaver is revealed – showing us the sinister side of the supposed rural idyll and simultaneously doing wonders for women’s lib when Mooney declares that she is ‘’just waiting to become a wonderful wife’’. A clever delight from this London duo, an emerging company who work with BAC; it’s highly comic theatre with lots of mime and character physicalisation.
Moving in Circles Hiphopscotch Dance Base Hiphopscotch compares the Bronx founders of Hip Hop and the Scottish Culture and features 40 minutes of fantastic breakdancing and beatboxing (and the odd bagpipe tune) from six highly talented guys who are all under 18. Using a projector at the back of the auditorium we see footage of the 1970s Hip Hop scene in New York and this is compared with the 21st century lives of young Scots. The company’s attempts to show how similar these two worlds are isn’t completely convincing – but the dancers were extremely acrobatic and the beatboxer especially talented.
My Own Private Submarine 7 Spies at the Casino Underbelly, Big Belly Paul Lavers, a solo performer in the enormous Big Belly space with little more than a Martini for assistance, has a big job ahead of him. Playing the part of David Niven, a star from the 1967 spoof spy film Casino Royal, Lavers details the making of the film, including plot details, behind the scenes gossip and a name-dropping history of its associated artists. This ambitious task has the potential to tap into a rich bank of filmic images investing in the audience’s powers of association and imagination. However, this incredibly in depth account of the disastrous making of the film is extremely specific to the film, which if you haven’t seen makes it hard to follow at times. One for hardcore Casino Royal fans’ eyes only, one suspects.
National Theatre of Scotland and Burnt Goods Venus as a Boy Traverse 2 A solo performance with musical accompaniment which is a collaboration between a young writer and relatively established performer, endorsed and co-produced by NTS. Based on a novel and announced as a story told in memoriam of the man behind the protagonist, it is all the more surprising that it is often visual aspects that stay in mind. The language used is evocative and the musical score contributes to and underlines the dense atmosphere of the production – but it is Tam Burns’s acting that captured the imagination most. His body language does not only vividly evoke different characters, but also endows their experience with a touching intensity. This is particularly praiseworthy as the focus on Cupid’s sexual identity and practices, which might not necessarily endear him to some members of the audience, renders his task even more difficult. His interpretation nevertheless underlines the beauty of the imagery he uses to describe them by translating them into stage images – dressed in gold he does indeed look precious. He also presents them as profoundly human, making the show not only visually but also emotionally engaging.
NIE (New International Encounter) The End of Everything Ever Pleasance Two We enter the space to the sound of live music and all the cast of six exude an air of ease and enjoyment. You know that you are going to have a good time when a show starts with accordion playing and alarm clocks! The End of Everything Ever is the third in a trilogy of twentieth-century narratives about war, and tells the story of a Jewish-German family in Berlin a just before the outbreak of the Second World War, and a subsequent ‘Kindertransport’ cross-Europe journey by train of the family’s daughter. The cast use clown-theatre ‘playing with the play’ techniques to allow the story to unravel, the audience delighting in the surprise on each performer’s face as he or she is allocated a part to play. With some fantastic physical moments, such as the whole family crammed into the wardrobe, and superb storytelling, NIE don’t have to push too hard to win us over to their jovial and honest style. With every joke there is a fine balance between the cast playing their characters and them stepping out of the part to raise eyebrows and poke fun of themselves and each other. At times, however, the show felt tied down by its own narrative a little and the arrival at the ending (rather than the ending itself) seemed slightly abrupt. Again, due to the performers skill, this didn’t disrupt the poignancy of the closing moments too much and the audience leaves smiling but pensive. An excellent example of what storytelling should be.
Nimble Fish The Container Underbelly (off site) ‘When I first started writing The Container’ said playwright Clare Bayley ‘I dreamed of it being performed in a real container. But I never really believed that anyone would let me do that’. The official premiere of her play in Edinburgh sees that dream realised. It is the sort of production decision that catches the imagination of critics and audiences alike, and The Container thus became one of the hot tickets on this year’s Fringe. Staging this play about asylum seekers inside an actual juggernaut proves to be a sound decision that goes beyond gimmickry. The site is used thoughtfully throughout the play: the audience locked into the dark container with the actors, characters emerging one-by-one from wooden crates; hand-held torches used very effectively to create atmosphere and to draw the audience’s attention to the shifting action; the noisy arrival from outside of the go-between demanding more money; the shocking removal of a young woman (widow of a man executed in Afghanistan for teaching girls) who has no money and may or may not be able to continue the journey, depending on her willingness or otherwise to provide sexual favours to the driver and goodness knows who else… Yet there remain reservations. The main one being that although it s a thoughtful and well-delivered piece of new writing, there is nothing that actually happens within the drama that couldn’t be predicted in the first ten minutes. This is often the downfall of political theatre: the polemic over-rules any other considerations and ultimately The Container only confirms what one knows, it doesn’t change or challenge perceptions (at least not those of a liberal Fringe audience). There is also an irritating amount of outside noise from the nearby Spiegelgarden, the cheerful babble and laughter rather interfering with the Illusion that we are trapped on a motorway or in the Eurotunnel. Somehow, it is harder to suspend disbelief in a site-specific setting that is urging us to engage with the drama kinaesthetically (rather than with our imaginations) than it would be in a conventional theatre space.
Offstage Theatre Phaedre CraigmillarCastle The ruins of Craigmillar castle provide a stunning backdrop for this newly adapted production of Phaedre (editor’s note: Phaedre seems to be a bit of a recurring theme at this year’s Fringe!). A guide leads the audience through the action and the atmosphere is heightened with beautiful music sung by a Greek chorus. The venue perfectly matches the play’s issues of a ruined family and the feeling of being trapped, and each performance space – whether it be one of the chambers, the courtyards or the castle grounds – makes the audience acutely aware of the character’s situation. However, the play never gives the characters an opportunity to redeem themselves and as such you leave feeling slightly cheated at their outcome. The direction is good but the acting relationships between the cast can vary: the love that Phaedre purports to have for Hippolytus never quite seems to ring true between the actors, thus slightly undermining what otherwise is a unique site-specific production.
Paper Birds 40 Feathered Winks Gilded Balloon Previously an an-female ensemble, Paper Birds invite two male actors into their world for 40 Feathered Winks, which centres (both physically on stage, and thematically) around beds and all that they contain in the journey from birth to death. Naturally, there’s a fair bit of sex – including a beautifully played dance of bodies and books, limbs and tomes curling and teasing around each other, evoking desire and rejection, excitement and boredom. The bed as the vehicle for the major rites of passage in life is explored with due care and attention to detail. Take childbirth, for example, rarely portrayed well on stage or screen, but here cleverly enacted with pillows, a billowing dress and a puff of feathers floating up from between a young woman’s legs. The pillows are later effectively cuddled and pounded by a chorus enacting the post-natal tiredness and desperation of the young mother whose emotions veer from overwhelming love to hateful resentment and back again in seconds – a state of mind that would be recognised by anyone who has given birth. The many stories presented (the couple who meet at a work conference, the young mother and her baby, another couple locked into an ambiguous marriage, a woman dying in hospital) weave in and out of each other cleverly – fragmented narratives are a staple of devised theatre, but few young companies handle their material with the sort of confidence that the Paper Birds have in this, their third production. The choreography is tight, the performers’ understanding of the physical theatre mechanisms of hero and chorus, call and response, flocking and deflocking used effectively. Beyond choreographic considerations, there is some great character acting, with the balance between archetype and individual character held well. In the best ensemble physical theatre tradition, there is little in the way of set or props: the bed (which becomes two beds when necessary), a few books, an umbrella – not much else. Minimal reliance on text, original composed music. Good, classic physical/devised theatre work – and there is certainly nothing wrong with taking an established mode of practice and doing it well. With full houses at the Gilded Balloon, Paper Birds are certainly making a name for themselves – at the Fringe and beyond.
Paul Trussell and Underbelly Productions Mouse Underbelly Iron Belly What a little peach of a performance. Goggle-eyed, lanky and with a rubber face, Paul Trussell recounts his chopped up monologue of late puberty, obsession, creepiness and office politics – all with a somewhat sinister edge… With a plot that unfolds around a series of initially obtuse physical mimes around the space, the intermittent smash of glass and snaps to darkness, an IT technician obsesses over two of his colleagues. Monitoring their email conversations he censors and strips their messages, manipulating their interactions whilst pouring over his all-powerful laptop. All the words are spoken with great energy and all the actions are delicate and precise. Even resisting the common temptation for a solo show to prattle on for too long, Mouse is a pleasure to watch
Penny Dreadful Bitches Ball Assembly at Hill St In Bitches Ball, the life of 18th Century poet Mary Robinson is told through heightened physical performance and song. Total Theatre defies any reviewer not to use the word romp! Once it got into its stride, and your reviewer got over noticing some apparent lack of attention to detail in set, costume etc, it was a very enjoyable piece. Grotesque characters played with a full-hearted, un-English generosity and volume. Not subtle, but very entertaining. Sometimes clever lyrics and spoken text which could have had more bite injected at times, to cut the conventionalism. Mary’s rise and fall was very clearly and competently set out by engaging performers, but could have moved us more if it had wanted to.
Pip Utton Adolf Assembly Universal Arts A solo performance from Pip Utton, who has presented this and other shows at Edinburgh Fringe before. Adolf has toured extensively throughout the world… The title and the photograph on the poster do not leave any doubt as to which Adolf the production refers. The astonishing number of spectators who come to see the performance can thus hardly expect a comfortable and reassuring play, but it is rather surprising that it is not Pip Utton’s impersonation of the dictator in the first half of the performance that proves to be most unsettling. Asking his followers to continue fighting for their cause, Utton’s Hitler moves smoothly from an imitation of the public speaker to the cynic who analyses his methods for enthralling the masses, but none of these aspects offers any radically new insight or shock. When he removes the trademark hairstyle and moustache, however, the development of his second stage persona, evolving gradually from a jovial though narrow-minded and highly prejudiced guy next door back to the ravings and open racism of the first half, is highly uncomfortable for an audience – especially the spectators who laughed at some of the blatantly racist jokes. Perhaps the performance is more relevant than I would have thought…
Plested and Brown Minor Spectacular The Pleasance Dome A double act, Minor Spectacular is a feast for the eyes… with fabulous Velcro costumes and props coming out of the actors’ ears (almost!), it is a technical wonder. The two actors (the eponymous Plested and Brown) tell the story of a dishwasher man who saves people one machine at a time. A great story with some extremely funny moments, although the laboured 'isn't this stupid’ gag goes on far too long and becomes a little irritating.
Prodigal Theatre Queen of the Slaughter Aurora Nova There is an air of a land in unsettled times. The story follows a band of renegades on the sleeping frontline of a nameless war. The show begins with the hushed singing of a young man about to set off to join a revolutionary cause. From the word go, the performances are well balanced and brooding. The first section of the show is particularly good, peppered with little surprises – a burst of flame here a puff of smoke there and, despite the intensity of the mood, the characters take time to laugh at themselves – if only for fleeting moments. The dance and movement theatre sequences are as powerful as they are dexterously performed. This combined with the live piano and evocative soundtrack all adds to the sense of gravity that the performers hold throughout the show. With these truly intense and masterful performances, it was hard to say why Queen of The Slaughter didn’t resonate more. Much of the fault seemed to be that the emotional intensity was somehow distant and a little too restrained, and the pace seemed sometimes to falter. So a massive respect for the extremely gifted actors, but the show as a whole was dissatisfying.
Ray Lee Siren Aurora Nova/Out of the Blue Drill Hall Siren describes itself as ‘is a whirling, spinning spectacle of mechanical movement, electronic sound and light’, which is a fair enough description, although the live experience at Drill Hall is of something far more. Entering the large and high-ceilinged hall, we encounter around thirty metal tripods, set in fenced-off areas with paths in between; a kind of widely-spaced metal maze. These tripods are of different sizes and ‘characters’; some are short and squat, others tall and windmill-like, their operators requiring ladders to reach the tops. They all have arms that spin at various speeds (the tripods, not the operators), powered by electric motors set off at different points in the performance. Electronic tone generators power loudspeakers at the end of each arm, and small LEDs at the end of the arms trace circles of light as the arms rotate. The operators are a team of men in black, who (not unlike classical musicians) are placed somewhere between technician and performer in their relationship to their instruments; their detached air is of people who need to get a job done, with a vague awareness that audience is present, without pandering to these outsiders too much. The audience are free to move around, and each person finds their own way of being there. Some move round a lot, getting constantly shifting perspectives on the space and sound; others find a spot to sit, enjoying the sweet drone of the oscillating sounds. On one level, what we have here is an activated sound and light installation – and a very successful one. The build and swell of sound and the mesmeric swirls of light animate the space beautifully. But is it theatre too? This reviewer would argue that it is. It has all the elements: a shared space within a fixed time span; an engagement between performers and audience (the aforementioned detachment of the men-in-black as much a performance mode as any other would be); a sense of being taken on a journey, which reaches a climax and then subsides. Stories and associations form in the imagination in response to what is experienced (Don Quixote’s windmills, Caractacus Potts in his tower, Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, the city symphony films of Ruttmann and Vertov, HG Wells’ The Time Machine…). When it ends, there is a too-short moment of silence, then an eruption of applause. Filing out of the space, the audience smile at each other sheepishly, in that way that you do when you know that you’ve shared something special.
Rich Swingle Beyond the Chariots Gilded Balloon Teviot This one-man show by actor Rich Swingle suffered from overly simplistic characters and uninspired storytelling. Both of these troubles appeared rooted in the show’s unsubtle agenda of evangelism. Based around the life of Eric Liddell, a Scottish Olympic hero who became a missionary in China , its characters were too polarised and two-dimensional to be believable. On one side the eternally benevolent Liddell, on the other his hotheaded, vengeful Chinese student. The fairytale quality of this uncomplicated demarcation was compounded when, in a time of crisis, the impetuous young student realised his grievances were unfounded and, wouldn’t you know it, turned to Jesus, and to Liddell, to make things right. This formulaic, patronising plot was made worse by some lazy writing and average acting. With the flyer for the show already boasting a collaboration with a famous film-producer this dull show seems destined for Hollywood banality.
Scamp Theatre and Bristol Old Vic Aesop’s Fables – Michael Morpugo Assembly at George Street Based on Michael Morpugo’s recent retelling of Aesop’s Fables and directed by Sally Cookson but very much a ensemble devised show. The company tell several of the classic tales using playful physical storytelling and music. Produced originally by Bristol Old Vic with the Edinburgh run managed by Scamp Productions. Sally Cookson has directed shows in this style at Bristol Old Vic and at Travelling Light for many years but the combination of her playful style and her commitment to working with a small pool of talented deviser/actors means that the shows – including Clown, We’re Going on a Bear Hunt and Aesop’s Fables – have the feel of having been produced by a small company. Coming on the back of Clown and the sublime We’re Going on a Bear Hunt, Aesop’s Fables isn’t the strongest of the Cookson/Bristol Old Vic collaborations but it is nonetheless a great example of grown up children’s theatre, demonstrating Ms Cookson’s trademark playful style incorporating object play, physical storytelling, live music and soundscape, and a strong ensemble cast. Special mention must go to Chris Bianchi who is hysterically funny and beautifully controlled throughout and whose energetic playing of an insanely hyperactive rabbit will stay with this reviewer forever!
Spotlights Theatre Company Sword in the Stone C Chambers Sword in the Stone is a full on, interactive children’s show based on TE White’s book about the legend of King Arthur and how he became king. This is children’s theatre at its best – it was wonderful seeing the delight on the children’s faces, some jeering and shrieking, other sitting silently in awe. In the show, every child has the chance to get involved, whether it’s jousting with a clumsy knight who’s always falling over or taking part in a knight’s training regime. Not only that but we got to throw bright blue dragon pooh at the bad guys and every one left with a pot of bubbles!
Tale on Fire What If? Pleasance Courtyard What If? Is an ensemble piece by UK based Tale on Fire which uses physical performance from three actors plus a narrator to tell a story about overuse of the Internet (it all circles around an imaginary social networking website called MyFace) to distract people from real connection and beige lives. The text was poetic, although the use of contemporary archetypes (‘the nerd’, ‘the successful young journalist’, ‘the desirable woman’ who is only known as ‘She’) started to become counterproductive as the journey continued. Physically a bit clunky, and it felt that the space was too small for the piece. But some great moments, an interesting design (all cream, swathes of calico cloth and a very inventive use of canvas shoe tidies as computers) and strong performances from all the cast.
Teatro dei Borgia Escaping Hamlet Underbelly Cow Barn Teatro dei Borgia was established in 2001 and is based in southern Italy , working with a ‘theatreschool’ method. This Hamlet is a failed lighting technician who dreams of running away with the maid, Kate, to join the theatre in Paris . Pretty much everyone else in gin-sodden Denmark apparently wants to do the same, but can't quite be bothered. So far, so amusing, but soon the familiar Hamlet story is buried under more and more layers: Hamlet's father was a worthless drunk; the ‘First Actress’ and ‘Second Actress’, playing the Rosencrantz and Guildenstern parts, are men in drag; there is much singing of Over The Rainbow, growing of noses, and discussion of Arabic fountains and the existence of God. Hamlet, having abandoned Kate on a motorcycle on the way to Paris , returns to die by drinking the poison used as a prop in the dumbshow (which provoked Claudius merely to declare Hamlet a theatrical genius). Ophelia hangs herself with a helium balloon. There is one touching sequence where Claudius and Gertrude regret the loss of their previously adulterous pleasures. But much of the text is either mysterious or grindingly banal, where it is audible – at one point someone actually declares that ‘the state of Denmark is completely rotten’. There's a constant sense of something clever about theatre being said here, but what – and, more importantly, to what end – is unfathomable. Oh, and after a witty soundtrack mainly of punk covers, suddenly playing Leonard Cohen to signify emotion is cheating.
The Firehouse Theatre Company Weights... One Man’s Blind Journey Theatre Workshop Accompanied by a live guitarist (also visually-impaired), Lynn Manning tells us his life story from a small stage, playing all the characters he encounters. The performance has a few interruptions when he takes a breathing pause for water and drying his sweat. Lynn is quite simply a very charismatic performer, who needs to do very little to involve you in his re-telling of his own life story, including a troubled childhood, not ever knowing his father and being shot three times at a bar. The story is rich and masterfully told, as Lynn 's voice impressions of his family, doctor, as well as the man who shot him became vivid characters in our imaginative eye. The amount of detail and the characterisation of his characters makes this a very strong piece. It's difficult not to see it simply as a good piece of storytelling, but it certainly is much more than just a story and he is much more than just 'telling it' as he relives crucial moments of his life in front of us, as if exorcising his demons. At other times he also relives hilarious experiences such as his first lesson on how to walk with a cane, and how to 'hit the target' when going to the toilet.
The Penny Dreadfuls Aeneas Faversham Returns Underbelly Big Belly The Victorian sketch-comedy quartet return to Edinburgh with their second show, the sequel to last year’s Aeneas Faversham. The company consists of Jamie Anderson, Humphrey Ker, David Reed and Thom Tuck. This ensemble’s confident comedy was based on linguistic anachronisms, literary mining and silly voices. It was all done with energetic exuberance and good timing but occasionally lacked control. It was easy to be caught up with the enthusiasm of an ecstatic audience, but my own laughter felt slightly strained - these four talented young actors never quite reaching the comic zenith they were aiming for. Humphrey Ker’s commandingly straight-faced performance stood out as the most effective vehicle for the linguistic time-travelling. One or two moments of pathos took the audience off-guard (as did a funny but overcooked bout of full frontal nudity). An entertaining but ultimately forgettable show.
The Shalimar La Femme est Morte or why I should not f%!& my son Pleasance Dome Written and directed by Shoshona Currier, this is a devised work from a company established seven years ago. It features a cast of young performers and uses dance, boxing, and an eclectic variety of texts taken from various sources with popular cultural references to retell Greek myth The performance style is musical theatre style with strong physicality. The feel of the show is an enjoyable and entertaining soap opera, loosely based on the story of Phaedra and her sexual obsession with her stepson Hippolytus during her husband Theseus’ absence. It is a toe-tapping digression from the more serious stuff, presented by an endearingly talented company. Basically, a satire on America ’s obsession with celebrity – with the murky shadow of a warring nation bent on liberation sitting uncomfortably in the background. It was presented with simplistic and fairly superficial large brushstrokes, aping the entertaining (or not) qualities of American Idol and the high school teenage musical tradition. You reviewer enjoyed the youthfulness and energy represented through the frenetic dance and boxing sequences and was struck by the unrealised potential of live instruments in performance. The piece had potential for deeper exploration of the potency of the visual imagery and themes within the material but instead was a brash display of the talents of the young cast in an end-of-term style extravaganza.
The Suitcase Royale Chronicles of a Sleepless Moon Spiegelgarden Suitcase Royale formed in Australia in 2004. They describe their work as ‘junkyard theatre’. Chronicles is an ensemble work by a cast of three, using various props, instruments, set that unfolds and reshapes, projections. The show is born from an engaging heap of clutter, from which emerge all manner of pleasing surprises: miniature landscapes, lamplit scenes of horror, even a three-piece band complete with stand-up bass. Less engaging is the madcap story of a plot to take an underground journey in a machine bizarrely powered by cows' blood (although the early moment of slaughtering plastic toy cows is a joy). And after a while, the manic and highly mannered physicality common to the three characters – Butcher, Doctor and Newsman – palls; it leaves little room for development or differentiation, and stifles much of the humour. The junkyard elements don't all work: the projections, for example, are mostly either too small or too thinly scrawled to be visible. The three performers deal endearingly well with strings of chaotic mishaps with set, sound, and material, but it's the untidiness of the ideas that is unsatisfying. All the elements work by accretion – more and more stuff and nonsense – rather than investigation or comparison.
The Trachtenberg Family Slideshow Players The Green Room The 1st pop slide postmodern family rock band! The idea of playing songs based around a random collection of slides is ingenious and when you add achingly real family moments of turmoil and adolescent frustration, it’s amazing. Father Trachtenberg hogs the show while his wife (Tina: slide operator) and daughter (recalcitrant drummer) look on in pained squints. You always feel that the show and the family are about to fall apart. The Trachtenbergs are a Fringe institution for their indefinable ability to capture you with absurdist lyrics and slides about European boys and fine art – but at the same time it’s like when your dad used to pick you up from your friend’s house in his dressing gown and slippers…
Theatre of Widdershins Elves and the Shoemaker Quaker Meeting House A show aimed at younger children, incorporating music, puppets and audience interaction. As we enter the venue, we are welcomed in by Elvis Schumaker, who offers to measure our feet, much to the delight of the younger members of the audience. During the entrance of the audience, the performers looked a little anxious, a little lost and uncomfortable, but this was perhaps all part of the show? In any case it did not deter from the subsequent great delivery of the story. A highly detailed and magical set helps play out the well known tale, with beautiful puppets, crazy puppet dancing and endless tiny leather shoes we are invited to inspect. This tale also contained a healthy supply of word puns and grown-up jokes to keep us smiling. A good mix of colourful characters and delightful images, and a moment of magic where sprinkles are met with giggling toddlers on the front row. A well delivered and slick show that was obviously aimed at very young children, and this meant for a slightly slow delivery of the story, including the relevant ooh’s and aah’s. Once the story really got going it was strong. One of a number of special moments was when the glass windows (carefully made out of fabric) covered the shop and the shadowy elves sew the shoes. A magical children’s tale, told well and accompanied by a fun-filled musical score.
Theatre Du Risorius Little Bear Sweet, Grassmarket A puppet show for very young children with vocal but non-verbal soundscape, created by a visible puppeteer. French company Theatre du Risorius are well established, normally performing in their own tent or caravan. A great deal of the charm of Theatre du Risorius’ shows lies in the unusual settings in which they play, from their own theatre tent to the customised caravan in which they play Volpino (also presented at this year’s Fringe). Little Bear by contrast was performed in a hotel room, which significantly reduced the charm factor from the outset. This however didn’t seem to affect the enjoyment of the very young audience aged between 18 months and 3 years old who were utterly captivated by the gentle antics of the beautifully crafted rod puppet Little Bear and his friends. Solo performer Delphine Boutaud puts in a strong performance with delicate manipulation and expressive vocal, non verbal communication but even her considerable skills couldn’t disguise the fact that the narrative was rather too slight to hold the audience right the way to the end and the young audience did begin to drift during some of the more repetitive scenes. For the most part however Little Bear is, in classic Theatre du Risorius style, a charming show perfectly suited to a very young audience.
Theatre du Risorius Nothinglefttolose Rocket venues Theatre du Risorius’s rock ’n’ roll take on social exclusion is anything but predictable. The entire set collapses within five minutes of the start and it is from the debris that an unlikely alliance forms between two men, who have nothing left to lose but a guitar (crushed by the falling building) and a case of beer. There is a wonderful sequence when they go to Granny’s house to beg for money to buy a new guitar. In a cross between Little Red Riding Hood, the Wizard of Oz and the plot of a silent movie, Granny steals their beer, shuts them in the cellar but then is crushed by a falling wardrobe, leaving only her feet poking out from underneath. Their absurd quest continues through what seems to be a pre-historic swamp, followed by the stage of a concert hall, ending back amongst the rubble. It is a pleasure to watch a Fringe production in which the elements of lighting and video are used with style and ambition. The rock ’n’ roll sound track gives the piece a wild energy, which is finally unleashed as the two men play on the pieces of the broken guitar. Nothinglefttolose is a crazy mix of styles; it manages to be Beckettian one minute, and reminiscent of Charlie Chaplin the next. This is often at the expense of any prolonged or developed social comment, but with more focus, and a few more people in the audience, it has the potential to be a very interesting and powerful performance.
Theatre Golden Calf The Cave of the Golden Calf Assembly Universal Arts The Cave of the Golden Calf is a celebration of cabaret in all its forms. The company is a collection of accomplished artists and musicians that have put together a strong show of talent in this piece that explores the roots of English cabaret, The Cave of the Golden Calf’ being one of the original cabaret venues for Bohemian London in 1912. This contemporary Cave of the Golden Calf’ has bought together a range of professionals from a variety of cabaret styles: from burlesque, to lip synch, to mime. The production takes us back to where cabaret began and journeys through to its more contemporary manifestations. Despite the high standard of the acts, The MC’s beginning to the night did not do the show justice and the weaknesses lay in an over-contextualisation of the acts. However, once the acts began the audience was entranced by the talent of the performers. The show featured, amongst others, the dynamic and superb accordionist and chanteuse Marni Rice with her inspiring version of Kurt Weil’s songs, and a particularly lively rendition of Tea for Two by Suppository Spelling. There are lags in this show but overall it is a rollicking good ride through the rich history of cabaret.
Theatre M The Little Prince C too The Little Prince is not a children’s story. Rather, it holds a less than flattering mirror up to adult-kind by demonstrating how they (we) appear through the eyes of a child. Theatre M, like hundreds of other companies every year, misunderstand the basic premise of the book and attempt to present it as children’s theatre. The result, inevitably, is a repetitive, episodic show, the content of which holds little interest for children and the form of which holds no interest for adults. To be fair, this was far from the worst version of The Little Prince your Total theatre reviewer has seen, and the young company did create some nice images – although their design concept was essentially to create a carbon copy of Antoine St Exupery’s illustrations on stage. All in all a distinctly average show based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the source text.
Tom Tom Club E4 Udderbelly There is something about the fusion of musical and physical virtuosity – and in this case it is laconic perfection. Tom Tom Club are seven young Aussie men: its one half Fat Freddies Drop one half the East German Olympic gymnastics team circa 1983. Death tempting aerial stunts and some of the best beat boxing for puckish Tom Thumb since Police Academy 2. Oh and the drumming was good too!
Tuckedin Productions Jackajack Underbelly This was a confident, clear, ensemble performance, with several pleasing moments: Mr Three-times, who says everything three times (with enjoyable twists); a forest made with metal rods and torchlight; a sequence where a crying mask doubles up with a puppet character; and a charmingly unpleasant just-so story about how double yellow lines came into being. The problems began with the tedious one-thing-after-another fantasy story as Jack the puppy set out in search of his little-girl owner. It’s unclear why they separated, and unclear why the particular challenges needed to be met before they could reunite, so the story floated away from any real resonance, draining it of emotional depth. This reviewer disliked the split between ‘cast’ and ‘puppeteers’, the latter being in the space but black-clad and silent, while the former played all the parts and voices. There is too much straightforward storytelling-over-action, so that the visual becomes illustrative, and although the puppetry for the main two characters is fine, the shadow sequence is unimaginative and messy. Much of the action is played downstage on the floor, rendering it entirely invisible to all but the front row. There is good work here, nonetheless, but in the service of a not-very-good purpose.
Will Adamsdale The Human Computer Traverse 3 The conceit is cute and the reveal of a cardboard Windows desktop was a wonderful moment, but although certainly a clever idea and well staged, ultimately rather underwhelming – your Total Theatre reporter found himself looking at his watch at least three times, fairly unengaged by the performer and feeling the experience was rather episodic. Perhaps this was an off night for Adamsdale? And unfortunately the main player in the audience participation element was a real pain in the ass, upstaging Adamsdale at every turn and generally getting in the way. The UK audience seemed reluctant to embrace the communal feel of the show and sadly Adamsdale didn't do much to create or maintain the kind of atmosphere in which that kind of dynamic might better thrive.
Wisepart, Jews and Communists CA$H IN CHRIST Assembly at Hill Street The SunriseChurch is a hotbed of misogyny, homophobia and greed, yet the audience sing along happily to a song about how women should be submissive to their husbands, such is the infectious enthusiasm of Bob and Fanny Comfort. Here lies the bitter aftertaste to this enjoyable musical comedy. Performers and writers Van Badham and Jonny Berliner convey successfully the lure of such groups, which is sinister but nevertheless attractive. They make a clear parallel with fundamentalist Islam, singing, ‘There’s a holy war to wage’, and concluding the performance with some sobering facts on the growth of extremist Christian groups in America . There is little subtlety to this analysis. They do not interrogate the cause of this growth, and the social problems behind it. It is, however, a point well made that religious intolerance and extremism is more wide spread within Christianity than the media would have us believe.
Wong Bik Wan & Company When Reason Sleeps C Soco In When Reason Sleeps the only constant is the sound of Bach’s Goldberg Variations playing in the background. Performer Wong Bik Wan picks out the various moods of the music, dancing in styles as varied as the sensual flamenco to the demure Chinese fan dance and assuming masks from the deeply tragic and dramatic to the playful. Interspersed through the piece she reads her own poetry. Despite its ambitions, When Reason Sleeps fails to be elegant or profound and there is little in it that is entertaining. The music is beautiful but a bad recording, and the poetry is densely abstract to the point of inaccessibility, with the result that she alienated her (small) audience.
Yamato Chanbara Legend of the Sword Pleasance Grand Overall too short on spectacle for a spectacular. As you might expect, and no worse for it, a flimsy narrative based around the legendary sword as an excuse for a display of skills. There is tumbling, men on elastic, trampolines, a token woman who can fight and gets beaten up, and a baseball-hatted hero. The fast action and sound effects work well enough. The drumming is great and powerful. But too many long transitions with nothing happening (except backstage costume changes). Over reliance on haze and loud noises. It’s not unenjoyable, but lacks a real wow factor. The big finale just about fulfils its purpose, and the encores are great. Then they seem to tell the whole ‘story’ again in five minutes! With the audience clapping along this time, baffling but good fun and leaves everyone with a good feeling. Will be interesting to see how it sells via word of mouth – it was half full on this occasion.
Yegam & Seven Sense Company Break Out Assembly Queen’s Hall This was a fun-packed, acrobatic, breakdancing extravaganza performed by a visually and physically stunning ensemble of Korean performers. Taking as its premise the universal idea of divine intervention in mankind’s earthly plight a holy book descends ‘lost-ark-like’ on a prison as the prisoners are dreaming of escape. Through cartoonesque slapstick, chases, disguise and an exploding car straight out of the circus, the piece adopted many elements of conventional pantomime. It utilised varying degrees of audience participation both on and off the stage and film projection that lent a tongue in cheek vision of history colonised by the breakdancing phenomena that possessed prisoners and prison officers alike. To break out means to breakdance superbly. Simple.
Zupakat Productions Seven Times Me Sweet, Grassmarket An autobiographical solo show by performance poet Kat Francois, about childhood and then teenage years and then adulthood, touching on subjects of love and poetry and undercut with memories of a violent father. Kat is gutsy and confident and accomplished at poetry performance, but Seven Times Me is lacking a little in attention to detail or stagecraft, and this limits what is potentially moving in the piece. Whenever images/film projected onto the backing stop or start, a semi-transparent pause/play symbol appears in the top left corner. It’s not a huge deal, it’s a homemade show and that’s part of its appeal, but it’s also part of what displaces the energy of live performance in the show’s moments of most intense personal risk. There is this feeling almost that the audience is disregarded, so that the attention they have chosen to give is neither directed nor carefully placed. This is especially debilitating in an autobiographical show. There is no set; little movement. It would have worked just fine on the radio—perhaps would even have worked better, as the size and style of the venue (a not very large hotel room) made some of the material, about child abuse, awkward and strained the assumption that this was theatre and not something else.
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