‘Dear Scotland’ (Scottish National Portrait Gallery: 24 April to 3 May)

Posted in Other, Rated: Nae Bad, Theatre by Richard Stamp

Sally Reid as the unnamed woman in the ‘Poets’ Pub’.
Photo: Peter Dibdin
Painting by Alexander Moffat (1980)

‘Finely-honed, finely-tuned productions … You’ll have to go twice – because the twenty short plays are split into two groups of ten, performed on alternate days.’

A National Theatre of Scotland production.

Dear Scotland provokes some complex responses, but the concept underpinning it is a wonderfully simple one. As you’re led round the National Portrait Gallery on Queen Street, you’ll find actors stationed in front of portraits – each of them cast as the man or woman portrayed in the work of art. Each actor delivers a script penned by a different playwright, in the form of a letter addressed to the nation. So you might hear, for example, the unmistakeable voice of Liz Lochhead … but spoken by a man, in the persona of Robert Burns.

The actors are paired with portraits without reference to their looks, or (hilariously) even to their gender. Colin McCredie as the Queen is a particular highlight; in some ways, he better captures our image of the monarch than the unflattering portrait hanging behind him. Such an overt mismatch avoids some moral issues, too. Playwright Johnny McKnight isn’t putting words in Her Majesty’s mouth, but offering an alternative Queen – one who tells us things the real Elizabeth would never be so gauche as to say.

Another piece, written by Peter Arnott, pulls the same trick the other way around; this time, he has Walter Scott lay bare the things we think, but don’t dare to mention. A gender inversion again works well, with Lesley Hart offering a memorable performance as a thoroughly modern Sir Walter. But to see both the pieces I’ve mentioned, you’ll have to go twice – because the twenty short plays are split into two groups of ten, performed on alternate days.

It’s worth a second visit, since seeing the same actors re-cast in different roles presents some intriguing juxtapositions and parallels. The scenes explore a fine range of the gallery’s exhibits too, from an exalted king to a nameless woman and from photographs through paintings to sculpture. There’s even, bizarrely, a monologue delivered by a dancer’s knee (though mercifully it’s played over loudspeakers).

Colin McCredie as James Boswell
Photo: Peter Dibdin
Painting by George Willison (1765)

So the individual pieces are often compelling, but does the whole show hang together? Overall, yes; the itineraries are finely-honed, finely-tuned productions. The actors’ dress and poses subtly echo the portraits – enough for you to notice, but not so much that it starts to feel mechanistic or trite. And the logistics are impeccable too, with an array of assistants escorting the audience through the gallery, in groups which feel like they move at their own pace yet somehow never collide.

But inevitably perhaps, for a work built from so many different pieces, there’s a clumsy repetitiveness to some of the themes. “Tour B” in particular shoe-horns a discussion of independence into each and every vignette – as though the whole of Scottish consciousness can be reduced to a “yes” or a “no”. “Tour A” explores a wider view of society, and feels much more subtle and thoughtful as a result.

Across both nights, the most striking scenes were those which challenged our complacent assumptions – dared to suggest that some of our nation’s faults might originate from within. Zinnie Harris’ script for a chorus of forgotten women will linger in the memory, touching a type of pain that lives inside us all. And Nicola McCartney’s complex, riddling monologue, spoken by a bystander, opens with a welcome yet carries a bitter sting in its tail.

At the end, you’re invited to write your own note to the nation – so here is mine: ‘Dear Scotland, let’s remember how to have this conversation; not just till September, but onward, into whichever future we choose. Let’s carry on learning about our past, and speculating about our present; because, with this elegant production, the National Theatre of Scotland shows just how entertaining that thought-provoking dialogue can be.’

Reviewer: Richard Stamp (26 & 28 April)

Visit Dear Scotland homepage here.

22Apr2014

‘Skeleton Wumman’ (Traverse: 22 – 26 April ’14)

Posted in Rated: Nae Bad, Theatre, Traverse by Dan Lentell

Buchan Lennon as Young Man and Amy Conochan as Skeleton Wumman.
Photo: Lesley Black.

‘Buchan is seamless, fluid and graceful. If he were Salome, I’d have the head of John the Baptist brought to him with an apple in its mouth.’

Editorial Rating: Nae Bad

“I’m not entirely sure I understood that,” I confided to no one in particular walking out into the thick Spring mist. The questions raised by Gerda Stevenson’s lunchtime script continued to buzz round my head as I wandered through the exhibition of Edward Lear watercolours at the National Gallery. It’s a sign that the magic of theatre is working I suppose. There’s a similarity in the way Lear represented mid-nineteenth century Greece and the seascape of myths conjured by Stevenson.

Both evoke folk memories held deep in the collective conscience. Both present skilled artists with a canvas for intricate flair – none of Lear’s paintings is larger than A3 while a Play, a Pie and Pint runs not much more than an hour. And neither entirely satisfy.

The muted colours of the Scots dialect run from Stevenson’s pallet into something of a monologue delivered by Amy Conachan as the Skeleton Wumman. The plot is an interplay of narratives woven from Inuit tales and mythology, offset by the innermost thoughts of a contemporary young girl.

There is an Inuit tale of a fisherman who ensnares bones of a forgotten young woman, cast out by her disapproving father. When the seemingly lifeless, barnacled relic of a past tragedy drinks a single tear shed in sorrow by the fisherman, her flesh and animation return, in turn ensnaring him. In Stevenson’s narrative the Skeleton Wumman might also stand for Sedna, Inuit goddess of the deep.

The young girl portrayed by Conachan is severely disabled. We find her at home being cared for by her father, an oldskool fisherman stuck on land by the inclement season. We hear her innermost thoughts, ideas and perspectives, which she is otherwise unable to communicate especially to her uncommunicative father.

Conachan leads a trio of performers who somehow sprint the marathon. She is an extremely gifted performer, one who knows how best to present the results of her Royal Conservatoire of Scotland training (where she is currently studying). She is the glue holding the narratives together and does not come unstuck even as the script’s monologue starts to skirt the bounds of monotony. Conachan’s relationships with Buchan Lennon (as her Father and as the Young Swimmer who has caught her eye at the city pool) are truly enervating.

Buchan is seamless, fluid and graceful. If he were Salome, I’d have the head of John the Baptist brought to him with an apple in its mouth. He inhabits both characters more like a Game of Thrones warg than someone playing make believe. Every nuance is there. The Father is at once terrified of nappies, especially now his daughter’s becoming a woman, whilst also tender, attentive and affectionate. The Young Swimmer is shy but friendly, a breath of fresh exotic air. Buchan fills Kipling’s unforgiving minute in If with miles of distance run.

Completing the trio is Seylan Baxter. Noted as one of the small, but growing, number of players reintroducing the cello into Scottish traditional music, Baxter provides far more than a soundscape. She employs the electric cello for both music and sound effects. The beating heart, the familiar musical phrase, the playful twist, each is managed from a push pedal system allowing her to sample herself as merrily she rolls along. Sitting on the far left, I’ve got the best view of the pedal system in action. Not a foot wrong, although one time Baxter almost hands Buchan an umbrella instead of an inflatable rubber ring; happens to the best of us.

The props, set, lighting and sound were all of the highest standard. The gentle sobbing from the techies responsible for all those cues added not unpleasantly to the overall effect. This was a production of very high production values and higher ambitions, the more so for having hit almost every mark.

I’ll be thinking about Stevenson’s script long after Edward Lear’s watercolours have washed out of memory. Spooky, to the point of spine-tingling, Skeleton Wumman is however unfairly weighted between the trio on stage. But that Conachan is a thoughtful and compelling performer, one who carries much more than her own weight, the play might have foundered.

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Reviewer: Dan Lentell (Seen 22 April)

Visit Skeleton Wumman‘s homepage here.

19Apr2014

‘The Comedy of Errors’ (King’s: 16 – 19 April ’14)

Posted in King's Theatre, Rated: Nae Bad, Theatre by Dan Lentell

Photo: Nobby Clark

“James Tucker as Adriana pushed out all the stops. He built up a fantastic head of steam, crashing into the terminus barriers with enough force to lift the plot’s ludicrous conclusion to the heights of hilarity.”

Editorial Rating: Nae Bad

The three preceding (and four subsequent) plays of the RSC’s 2001 Histories Cycle had been so brilliant, that the unutterable awfulness of Edward Hall’s take on Henry V came as a serious shock to the system. It’s taken thirteen years of painstaking therapy for the flashbacks and nightmares to subside. Unforgettable was the moment when Hall had hundreds of tennis balls bounce across the stage on Essex’s line, “Tennis balls, my liege.” One of the most dangerous and dramatic moments in the canon blown out of all proportion for the sake of a cheesy visual gag. For those of us embarked on the whirlwind tour of eight history plays in six days the forced funny fell flat.

By contrast, two nights earlier the definitive Richard II of my lifetime had snatched our collected breath away. The late, much lamented Steven Pimlott punctuated the opening play of the Cycle with the lines, “I have been studying how I may compare, This prison where I live unto the world: And for because the world is populous And here is not a creature but myself, I cannot do it.” Shakespeare gave the line to Richard II alone. Pimlott shared it with Queen Anne (Act 3: Scene 4), Richard (Act 5: Scene 5) and at the very end with Bolingbroke. The effect was profound, out barding the Swan.

The recurring lines appealed to my grumpy teenaged sensibilities. More consequentially, it conclusively demonstrated that a director can be reverential to Shakespeare’s unmatched genius without embalming his text. David Troughton played Bolingbroke, opposite Sam West in the title role. Both are scions of great acting families. Edward Hall, director of the Propellor Theatre Company, has an equally impressive pedigree, but as Tony Benn liked to quip, there’s no such thing as an hereditary pilot.

Back in 2001, when mobile phones were still a novelty (just about), the cast of Henry V had been slouching around on stage at the start when a ringtone rang out. It was Pistol’s! How funny was that? What a clever and inventive way to remind people that they might inadvertently interrupt the script with a needless distraction.

Thirteen years later, we enter to find the same busy business on stage and off. Actors flit hither and dither one-sidedly chatting with the audience, establishing The Comedy of Error’s Rocky Horror aesthetic. Perhaps this bonphonie is your cup of tea. All I’d suggest is that in the nature of things, a person standing can’t help but talk down to a person sitting, figuratively and literally.

An all-male cast (as in Shakespeare’s own day) necessitates cross-dressing. Hold the panto, why are we meant to find this intrinsically funny? All-female Lears et al don’t tend to tap this varicose vein of comedy mould. In the week when India recognised transgender people as belonging to a third gender, I can’t help wondering if we aren’t being invited to backhandedly giggle at the black and white minstrels of our age.

Similarly the all-caucasian Mariachi band seemed to suggest something diminishing about Mexican culture not uttered, outside the Top Gear studio, since the producers of Fraiser toyed with the idea of Daphne being a laconic hispanic housemaid back in the early ‘90s. Did this production seep out of the Blue Peter millennial time capsule? Even the prolific use of football shirts nodded towards the Nick Hornby-era, when the beautiful game’s gentrification was at fever pitch. The 21st century appeared above the Madness inspired soundtrack in the form of the e-cigarette which is now all but ubiquitous in productions lacking mature vision.

The Comedy of Errors is a tough nut to crack. Two pairs of mistaken identical twins causing double the hilarious consequences. It’s a silly play requiring serious talent on stage. Fortunately, even the Dead Sea can reflect starlight.

This was an exceptional cast without exception. Joseph Chance and Dan Wheeler, as the twin masters, established the musky basenotes from which the playful rifts of Will Featherstone and Matthew McPherson, as the twin servants, emerged to enliven. Although all four were not on stage together until play’s end, they conjured a continuum which turned the narrative arc into a canopy of luscious woodbine, sweet musk-roses and eglantine which perfectly perfumed the performances of the entire cast.

James Tucker as Adriana pushed out all the stops. He built up a fantastic head of steam, crashing into the terminus barriers with enough force to lift the plot’s ludicrous conclusion to the heights of hilarity. Beneath the dragging drag act both he, as well as the flawless Arthur Wilson (Luciana), established the emotional range required for the darker comedy.

Dominic Gerrard as The Duke, as with the whole production, came into his own after the interval. Suddenly the pace got pacier, with time being left for the actors to enjoy the fruits of their labours. The plot may be thin as tissue during a paper pulp shortage but it frames some fantastic lines, banter and badinage.

To see a strong cast with swift bite slow to sink their teeth in requires the Russian Revolutionary remedy. After 1917 Soviet orchestras divested themselves of importunate conductors, preferring to guide the collective collaboration by the mutual light of their individual talents. The Propeller Theatre Company should propel their Jonah overboard.

—

Reviewer: Dan Lentell (Seen 18 April)

Visit Propellor at King’s homepage here.

19Apr2014

‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ (King’s: 16 – 19 April)

Posted in King's Theatre, Rated: Nae Bad, Theatre by Richard Stamp

Chris Myles as Bottom
Photo: Nobby Clark

‘unambiguously, unashamedly, unpretentiously hilarious’

Editorial Rating: Nae Bad

When I was a child, I couldn’t understand why half of Shakespeare’s plays were described as “comedies”; they seemed so resolutely unfunny. I wish I could have seen Propeller back then – because whatever else you might think of their Midsummer Night’s Dream, it’s unambiguously, unashamedly, unpretentiously hilarious. There’s one particular scene which might just be the most entertaining five minutes I’ve ever spent in a theatre, and if they just stood and read from scripts for the rest of the running time, it would still be worth the ticket price for those moments of joy alone.

But of course, that’s not what they do. The director’s notes highlight a “rigorous approach to the text”, but his style and presentation are unashamedly modern. The piece is filled with bold, striking images – and it’s performed very much in three dimensions, with actors clambering and capering on ledges across the backdrop. The literal high point comes when Oberon and Titania first confront each other, perched on matching thrones far above the other actors’ heads, divided by the chasm of the stage.

The physicality of Propeller’s performance adds a lot to the humour, but it has a serious edge to it too. Joseph Chance’s Puck delivers just the right mix of the carefree and the sinister. The Rude Mechanicals are re-invented with a dash of Dad’s Army, though their comic play-within-a-play arguably suffers a little in comparison to the earlier scenes. And it’s all set off by an appropriately other-worldly soundscape – intriguingly created by the actors, live on stage.

But of course, Propeller’s work is best known for a completely different reason: specifically that the actors are all men. And surprisingly, it’s here that the sense of effortless coherence begins to break down, with their approach to Shakespeare’s women feeling distinctly variable. At one end of the scale, Will Featherstone plays Hippolyta convincingly as a female, while James Tucker’s punkish Titania is a fascinating creation – the perfect equal for Darrel Brockis’ magnificent, half-crazed Oberon. But with other characters, the gender inversion seems more of a parody, and seeing a male actor mincing and flouncing is a major part of the humour.

Humour, perhaps, is enough. But you can’t quite divorce Propeller’s concept from the gender politics of our modern day – and I’d been hoping for something more than that, some surprising sudden insights which a mixed cast simply couldn’t provide. As it is, I’m not sure they do quite enough to justify their most defining artistic decision. Still, this has to rate as one of the most entertaining Midsummer Night’s Dreams you’re ever likely to have – and a comedy that proves itself still worthy of the name.

Reviewer: Richard Stamp (Seen 16 April)

Visit Propellor at King’s homepage here.

12Apr2014

‘Wendy Hoose’ (Studio at the Festival Theatre: 29 March ’14)

Posted in Festival Theatre, Rated: Nae Bad, Theatre by Richard Stamp

Photo: Eamonn McGoldrick

‘a comedy of lack of manners, or of mannered people’s cringe-worthy attempts to misbehave’

Editorial Rating: Nae Bad

Wendy Hoose is by Johnny McKnight and is A Birds of Paradise Theatre Company and Random Accomplice production. Directed by Robert Softley Gale & Johnny McKnight.

If you’re the sort of person who reads the small-print of theatre programmes, you’ll know all about audio description. Sitting at the back of selected performances, audio describers explain – for the benefit of those who can’t see the action themselves – exactly what’s happening on stage. lt’s normally done using headphones. But Julie Brown, Wendy Hoouse’s audio describer, wants to share her thoughts with all of us … so they’ve ditched the technology, and just let her speak over the PA.

Which, put like that, sounds suspiciously right-on. But Wendy Hoose is all about messing with expectations – and this particular subversion proves truly inspired. Like the opinionated narrator of a Victorian novel, Brown seemingly can’t keep her thoughts to herself, and colours her commentary with a hilarious blend of upper-crust unshockability and deadpan disdain. ”Jake touches Laura’s breasts. She doesn’t seem to mind,” Brown’s disembodied voice observes primly. And then, a moment later: “Which I guess is what makes her different from me.”

Wendy Hoose has been called a “comedy of manners”, but it’s more a comedy of lack of manners, or of mannered people’s cringe-worthy attempts to misbehave. Paisley man Jake meets the confident, sassy Laura on the internet, and turns up at her flat in Cumbernauld with casual sex on both their minds. But neither of them’s particularly good at it — and Jake, in particular, proves comically bad at actually getting the job done. You’ll have gathered that this isn’t a play for the easily-offended, but the whole thing’s played with a crucial measure of restraint; it’s explicit enough to draw squeals of shock from the audience, yet it somehow never quite lapses into being crude.

James Young is sweetly engaging as the nervous, restless Jake, deftly capturing a veneer of confidence disguising insecurity and confusion. Amy Canachan, playing the bold-as-brass Laura, mocks Jake’s Paisley tones – as do the captions above the stage, which also feature cheery cartoons and other unexpected visual flourishes. The two actors share a deft comic timing, and they carry the audience effortlessly into the few more serious scenes.

The story takes a thought-provoking turn part-way through, but it’s only at the end that it hints at its true message – a comment on isolation in our seemingly connected world, with resonance even for those completely unlike Jake or Laura. Perhaps there’s more to draw from that concept; the ending feels distinctly abrupt. And the pace drops a little around the twenty-minute mark, though the gasps of laughter soon start coming again.

When all’s said and done, though, the plot of Wendy Hoose was always going to be upstaged by its design. lt takes the tools of accessibility — the narration, the surtitles, the sign-language interpreter — and rather than letting them divide the audience, turns them into an entertaining treat which everyone in the room can enjoy. So you should try to see Wendy Hoose; not because it’s commendable or inclusive (though it’s surely those things), but just because it’s clever, and tremedously good fun.

Reviewer: Richard Stamp (Seen 29 March)

Visit Wendy Hoose homepage here.

11Apr2014

‘This May Hurt A Bit’ (Traverse: 8 – 12 April’14)

Posted in Rated: Nae Bad, Theatre, Traverse by Alan Brown

‘The Grim Reaper cannot wait for the good times to roll.’

Editorial Rating:Nae Bad

NHS England and not NHS Scotland is examined in Stella Feehily’s agile new work, which is mildly or wildly reassuring depending on the state of your health and where you live. This May Hurt a Bit is still a jag of a play, needle sharp where it matters and good for you. It will also, with luck, get stuck into government.

There is no squirming away from the political point of Feehily’s writing or from Max Stafford-Clark’s expert direction. The National Health Service is sixty-six years old, is in a High Dependency Unit, and needs your support before it is wheeled off as a terminal case. Here is an acute and tender understatement of a critical condition.

The play begins deep in the vein, if you will, of Ken Loach’s new film, the documentary The Spirit of ’45 when in his words ‘generosity, mutual support and co-operation were the watch words of the age.’ Aneurin Bevan, Minister of Health in the post-war Labour government, is on stage and brings the attention of the House to the extraordinary fact that ‘we are still able to do the most civilised thing in the world – put the welfare of the sick in front of every other consideration.’

That was in 1948, as indicated by the LED display. Move straight on to 2011 and then to the here and now but not before I, poor sap, thought that the medical staff were ‘serving’ customer/patient No.1948. Rather like those long waits in the East Coast advance booking hall at Edinburgh Waverley or, come to think of it, my time in A&E at the new ERI when a low-flying discus cracked my head.

The set of This May Hurt a Bit actually looks like an interior of the Old Royal before the PFI op. You cannot see it but there’s blood on the ceiling. Long and narrow gothic windows and grubby whitewashed brickwork and a screened treatment area centre stage with a disconcertingly large EXIT sign suspended above it. By scene 17, of 18, The Grim Reaper cannot wait for the good times to roll.

Nicholas James (66) is being treated for a prostate the size of a space hopper but has the good manners not to worry anyone but himself. His mother, Iris (91), suffers a fall and is admitted to the local District General for investigation. Fond but limited daughter Mariel is visiting from New York where all-American husband, Hank, is an orthopaedic surgeon. In Hank’s professional opinion – because you die in city hospitals – Iris should be treated privately where she’ll enjoy a lovely view of the Thames. Iris, bless her, swears (profanely) by NHS care, and refuses to move. Nicholas is with his mother all the way.

On the wards, or more accurately on the corridors, there is near bedlam. As well as Iris, Nurse Gina has to look after incontinent stroke patient Rev. John and dementing, bonkers, Dinah. Paramedics, porters, and police dispense black humour. There is a corpse in the screened cubicle, left.

Deadpan funny is rarely in remission but neither is the rolling political script. There is no positive narrative behind NHS reform, Prime Minister, so you just go out there and spiel away; and Feehily provides a wacky retinue – from within the cast of eight – of singing nurses, advisors, strategists, a board of directors, Churchill, a weather girl, and Maggie Thatcher on her perch. I have mentioned Death.

Stephanie Cole and Natalie Klamar

Iris is at the play’s selfless heart. Her absolute, principled, and dear refusal to leave NHS care means she is immune to what afflicts it. Peerless Stephanie Cole cannot be touched in the role. Similarly, Natalie Klamar as Nurse Gina from God knows where – possibly Poland, maybe Serbia – has an angelic part, made all the sweeter when she explodes in effing fury at the specious ‘Culture’ of shitty spending cuts.

It is a bit too easy, I think, to import Hank as the big bad US example – not one reference to French or German systems of social health insurance for instance – but that goes with the staked out territory of this continuing debate, which as Freehily palpably demonstrates gets far too close for comfort to the cynical truths of ‘Yes, Minister’.

This May Hurt a Bit has deft feel and touch all over it but it is also an invigorating shot in the arm for the campaign to keep the NHS safe and in public hands. Scotland, I propose, is reminded to keep its resistance up.

Reviewer: Alan Brown (Seen 9 April)

Visit Traverse, This May Hurt A Bit homepage here.

9Apr2014

‘A Perfect Stroke’ (Traverse: 8 – 12 April ’14)

Posted in Rated: Nae Bad, Theatre, Traverse by Dan Lentell

Anita Vettesse and Scott Reid. Photo: Lesley Black

‘The superbly cast Scott Reid (Thomas) proves he’s still very much in-touch with his inner 16-year-old gobshite.’

Editorial Rating: Nae Bad

We enter to find a typical classroom. The learning environment consists of teacher’s desk set before a blue background wall. The audience are in the round. Between me (on the far left, as ever) and the performance space is the actors’ door onto the stage. Beside the door are two clear boxes of universal props. These, together with the drama studies posters, tell us that we’re at the heart of Spud Control.

That pejorative is how the other teachers, them what teach grammar and sciences, describe Ms. Stone’s Drama department. It’s where the kids not unique enough to be special go to pass the day. Despite the condescension of the foreign language teachers, Ms. Stone hasn’t given up hope. She gives as much of herself to releasing the potential of pupils like Thomas as she once gave to her on-screen parts in Casualty, etc – ‘those who can, teach’ and all that.

Thomas has an important audition coming up and Ms. Stone is forgoing her Friday evening to coach him. As she teases out his inner Romeo the teacher/pupil relationship blossoms into a thorn-bush.

Johnny McKnight’s script is as packed with sweet and sour flavours as one of the Warhead Candies me and the other school spanners shared behind the bikesheds. At first you’re watching the introductory moments of a Naughty America porno – young guy being beguiled by a sexy older teacher – then the tables are turned, you can’t remember who’s exploiting who, and by the end everyone feels nice and dirty.

“No teacher would allow such a situation”, cluck a gaggle of mortar-boarded, Easter-happy schoolmarms within earshot. Despite the suspension of professional realities, McKnight insists we must experience the unfolding emotional manipulation as prescribed. Society’s moral certainties are not up for discussion. Unlike Glen Chandler’s Fringe ’13 landmark adaptation of Sandel, and more like A Play For September of the same year, McKnight’s script closes off the audience’s options for moral self-determination.

Even so, director Amanda Gaughan gets serious mileage out of the railroading. You could cut the tension with a metaphor. It’s been ratcheted up as though for a tyre change on a fleet of Hummers. Anita Vettesse (Ms. Stone) compellingly combines sensitive charm with dramatic flair. She is so real and really something. The superbly cast Scott Reid (Thomas) proves he’s still very much in-touch with his inner 16-year-old gobshite. Reid’s genius is to hint at the man Thomas is becoming as much as to lampoon the boy he is. Vettesse and Reid demonstrate active and reactive character work of the highest order.

Dani Heron’s finely carved cameo as Carly, Thomas’ girl, replete in skimpy schoolgirl outfit, allegorically illustrates that this cast is overdeveloped for the limited material allowed in the time available. Until Heron bursts in, you might be forgiven for worrying you’re stuck watching theatre about theatre – isn’t the Alexander Technique hilarious?

‘Actors only exist to serve the script’ agrees everyone when only I am allowed to speak. But there are times when the script must play supernumerary to stellar performances, and this is one such. Yet there’s no doubt McKnight knows how to bring the funny; the three-way with Heron especially could teach Catherine Tate a thing or two.

In the hands of this cast and director this script deserves a second half. Presently Ms. Stone’s crisis point is absent. It’s not clear where she eventually found her courage. Could it have been from imagining Thomas’ true treatment of Carly, with whom she might have more in common that she’d care to admit? There isn’t time to tell.

Reviewer: Dan Lentell (Seen 9 April)

Visit A Perfect Stroke‘s homepage here.

3Apr2014

‘The Medea’ (The Vault: 2 – 5 April ’14)

Posted in Other, Rated: Nae Bad, Theatre by Dan Lentell

Sophie Harris as Medea and Olivier Husband as Jason.

‘Sophie Harris’s Medea has as much self-loathing as hatred for Jason – her love for him does not make her weak, it hurts her and she wants the pain to stop.’

Editorial Rating: Nae Bad

Rosy-shouldered dawn shrugs disconsolately at the thick fog which has covered the Grange for days. The smell of wild garlic perfumes the air as I trudge earlymorningedly through the lanes. While Monty-The-Dog, a single headed cerberus, sniffs daintily at lampposts through his muzzle, Robert Graves’ The Golden Fleece tumbles from my iPod.

Graves’ Argonauts are a fractious lot, just about held together by the strings of Orpheus’ lyre. His Jason, a somewhat querulous figure, is little more than the unwitting product of circumstances and Chiron’s peerless tutelage. It’s easy to see how Graves’ Jason might have ended up on stage at the Vault in Victoria Fairlie’s adaptation of the Euripidean afterword.

Where I was dragged up you didn’t win the school classics prize if you described the story of Jason’s divorce from the headstrong princess Medea as an ‘afterword’ to the swashbuckling Argonautica. Edinburgh49’s editor (a former teacher himself) assures me this holds true most everywhere.

Up until last night I never fully appreciated the reasoning (other than antiquity) for the play’s enduring appeal. Euripides’ take on the jilted wife, who spites her lost love by destroying his new wife and father-in-law, before slaughtering her own two children by him for the sake of revenge, had always rather baffled me. What is there in a statement on the nexus of neurosis inherent in a barbarian woman who has betrayed her own kind to be with a foreign prince who in turn betrays her?

Through Fairlie’s well-scaled adaption I have (belatedly) come to appreciate that The Medea holds universal insights into the sorrow of falling out of love. Sophie Harris in the title role was sensational. Her strong, perfectly-paced voice opened proceedings, and her subtle variations kept the darkness bright. Harris’s Medea has as much self-loathing as hatred for Jason – her love for him does not make her weak, it hurts her and she wants the pain to stop.

The cast excel at squeezing the juice out of Fairlie’s lines until the pips squeak. “Don’t get me wrong, I love Medea.” My keyboard lacks punctuation marks expressive enough to encapsulate what James Beagon, as Marnes, did with that line. Another instance is the interplay between Medea and her importunate friend Althaia (Leyla Rana Doany). When the latter states, “A man is not your life” Medea retorts, “Maybe not every man, but this one was.”

The Classics Society should know its material like their degrees depended on it. That they do shows up in some A* character summations. Medea is “a shuddering mess of a woman,” whereas Jason’s new wife, Glauce, is “a pretty woman with an empty life.”

Fairlie calzones the script, flipping one half over the other to preserve the heat and amplify the flavour. Rather than relying on the traditional Chorus, the narration is provided by simultaneous retrospection from a Medea haunted by the incarnations of her good and bad angels. Maddie Haynes and Alice Vail shoulder something of the weight of expectations carried so artfully by Harris. They tease out her nuance, throwing up ideal dramatic uplighting.

Gone with the Chorus is Creon’s kingship. Cormac Rae presents Jason’s new father-in-law as a shady figure, wielding influence, rather than power, as might a supreme mafioso. Rae’s clipped tones saturate simple lines such as, “I’d like you to stop,” with quietly assertive menace. His crucial scene with Medea is played with a beguiling understatement. It’s very different from the bombast so often deployed at this familiar moment in the drama. Rae’s Creon is a concerned but devoted father. Perhaps he even harbours an apologetic sympathy for Medea denied disclosure by family loyalty.

Harris’ reactions are as essential as her acting. She is fortunate in her soundingboards, who bring depth and creativity to their roles. I’d like to see the colossally tall Josh Reid fending off bi-planes as he clings to the outside of the David Hume Tower, clutching the diminutive Harris in his hand. The difference in their size may be comic, but the exchanges between them crackle with sombre tension when Reid as Aegeus convinces Medea to connive.

I was not much taken with Olivier Huband’s previous outing as Jason, during the Dionysia. In his reprise of the role he has reached further and achieved more. The somewhat slimy efforts to overpower Medea with sexual magnetism are gone, replaced by a more thoughtful and thought-provoking interplay with Harris. Huband has tremendous poise, shaping himself to the moment as though he has stepped from an Attic vase. He also posses a powerful delivery. In the reprise he has proven he can use it to be more E-Type Jag than Centaur Tank.

This production and adaptation were not without faults. The tinkering with the death of Glauce and Creon’s needless survival were unimpressive. The backdrop of electoral politics hindered rather than helped the contemporary feel. Neither did the script allow Medea to do much more than scorch her bridges with Creon, when for the plot’s sake they needed to be burned entirely. The swearing was unnecessary. If an audience can cope with infanticide they’re not going to be upset by the f-word.

A good production avoids its weaknesses as much as it displays its strength. This was not the cast to present grief stricken fathers coming upon the fresh corpses of innocent children. The ending was downright muddled. If Beagon wants to be credited as a script editor, he needs to demonstrate at least as much ruthlessness as when he reduced Sword at Sunset to a mere three and half hours.

Reflecting on how much Fairlie’s adaptation has furthered my understanding of this oh so dark tale, I cannot help but be mightily impressed – it’s what you want from a Classics Society production. The venue may suit lines about cold, dark and dank environs but, as Harris so flawlessly demonstrates, the Vault is a great incubator of vibrant, compelling talent.

—

Reviewer: Dan Lentell (Seen 2 April)

Visit The Edinburgh University Classics Society’s Facebook page here.

2Apr2014

‘Love With a Capital ‘L” (Traverse: 1 – 5 April’14)

Posted in Rated: Nae Bad, Theatre, Traverse by Alan Brown

Photo: Lesley Black

‘How, in the name of all that is haughty and holy ….. ?’

Editorial Rating: Nae Bad

The first of the five short plays within the annual ‘A Play, A Pie and A Pint’ series that runs through April. Edinburgh49 is reviewing all five.

Loved it. And I’m not just talking about the Scotch pie and the pint before or afterwards. [Hot tip: the venison pies go quickly.]

Writer Tony Cox’s first stage play, directed by Hamish Pirie, is top-drawer work. A cross-examination of (i) rectitude on air and of (ii) the sneaky premise that all marriages are like potted plants – terminally pot bound – Love With a Capital ‘L’ is Radio4’s Thought for the Day with attitude.

It is ethically spiky. John Reith, the BBC’s first Director General, challenges Hilda Matheson, the Corporation’s ‘Head of Talks’. She, in straight-backed, imperturbable, manner, challenges him back and … a nice yucca plant is smashed to the floor.

This well-researched script is right in there at the beginning of public service broadcasting. We are in Reith’s office in Savoy Hill in June 1929. The BBC employs around 400 people at that time. Matheson has invited H G Wells to go on the radio to talk about world peace. George Bernard Shaw is due ‘on’ the election. Reith, son o’ the Free manse, regards both as ‘Reds’ and Bolshevik apologists but what really riles him is the air time being given to the Bloomsbury set and in particular to Vita Sackville-West and to her husband Harold Nicholson. Their views on marriage, open affairs, ‘free’ love, and the rest of it – most of it gay – appal him. How, in the name of all that is haughty and holy can ‘the keeper of the nation’s conscience’, allow it? Answer, if you would, Miss Matheson, please.

Easy: in brief, “Will that be all, Director General? I have work to do.”

Actually, that is far from all, as Reith has Matheson read his diary. Personal history will out and both characters are drawn sympathetically, if briefly, together.

Benny Young plays John Reith. It is the driven self-control, self-censorship, and the tight smile that gets you and the force of the interrogatory “Why?” Reith, momentarily wobbling, quotes Puck who will ‘put a girdle round about the earth / In forty minutes’ and you acknowledge that what Reith created at the BBC was unique and valuable. What Young gives us, also in forty minutes or so, is a more compassionate man than the unsparing biographies would suggest.

Lesley Hart is Hilda Matheson, who would have been forty-one in 1929; one year older than John Reith. Hart does not flinch once and plays Matheson as the extraordinary and successful woman she must have been. The script provides wit and intelligence enough but the confident bearing and sense of self-worth is Hart’s doing.

It is not on the wireless but you will want to listen in to Love With a Capital ‘L’. Its subject and its acting reward that kind of close attention.

Reviewer: Alan Brown (Seen 1 April)

Visit PPP Love With a Capital L homepage here.

28Mar2014

‘Double Bill’ (Traverse: 27 – 29 March’14)

Posted in Rated: Nae Bad, Theatre, Traverse by Alan Brown

“Open-sourced quality”

Editorial Rating: Nae Bad

This is the Traverse Theatre Company’s starred pairing of Clean by Sabrina Mahfouz and of A Respectable Widow Takes to Vulgarity by Douglas Maxwell; both plays directed by Orla O’Loughlin. Indisputable showcase productions, they’re looking sharp for the Brits Off-Broadway season on the 59E59 ‘A’ stage from 2nd to 27th April.

Clean is as in, “We searched her and her luggage and she was clean”. Only unapologetic protagonists Zainab, Chlöe and Katya, are not. It is just that they specialise in criminal work that scrubs up well: credit card fraud, emerald smuggling, and share price ‘protection’. They work and talk alone until one lucrative job and an evil Mr Big brings them together.

They make a game trio on the same spare platform, which is Mahfouz’s point. Clean is Bold Girls (at Level 1) on an Android OS: mobile, smart and sassy. Its story might as well be released for a PS4 console in search of female characters. Mahfouz’s on-off poetry is attractive with quick dialogue pressing hard on ‘Refresh’, providing feminist content and voice(s) within an all-user setting.

The performances display just as distinctly. Emma Dennis Edwards is Zainab. Hackney street-wise and ‘sick’, man; save that this is one sorted 23 year old who does not need a man in her life. She moves, sometimes raps, in-between poised, posh Chlöe (Jade Anouka) and Russki, Katya (Chloe Massey), whose accent is as hard, probably, as her steel toe-caps. OK it’s off-script, but you don’t ask Lara Croft if she has a younger sister, obvs.

Clean deserves to clean up in New York, which is more than Candy Crush’s listing managed.

A Respectable Widow Takes to Vulgarity has the same open-sourced quality as Clean. It looks explicitly to class and culture but plays nicely alongside the character graphics of Mahfouz’s piece. Director Orla O’Loughlin puts this on second, probably because it is funnier, less edgy and virtual, I suppose. Regardless, the direction is just as tight.

Writer Douglas Maxwell describes it as “My Fair Lady in reverse”. Sounds good. Well-spoken Annabel from purlieus douce meets young employee Jim Dick at her husband’s funeral. He’s emphatically not James Dick of Dick Place, EH9, the most expensive street in Scotland. Annabel would converse, he cannot without tripping into his f’ing vernacular that embarrasses him and fascinates her. There you have it. Flippin’ Pygmalion flipped.

Joanna Tope is Annabel and has just to adjust her scarf for you to realise that she does not shop at Accessorize, as the spelling would appal her. Her speech is pitched so well that ‘cadence’ probably registered on her P1 report. Gavin Jon Wright as James plays very reluctant, wired, ‘teacher’ with the merriment of an actor who knows he has a gift of a part. See him on the terraces when Annabel goes one word too far!

A crude joke of a name ends the piece and has them both choking on their Big Macs. An appetite for language is always healthy.

—

Reviewer: Alan Brown (Seen 27 March)

Visit Double Bill’s homepage here.

Get Your Coats On

and go see this!

Category Archives: Rated: Nae Bad

‘Dear Scotland’ (Scottish National Portrait Gallery: 24 April to 3 May)

‘Finely-honed, finely-tuned productions … You’ll have to go twice – because the twenty short plays are split into two groups of ten, performed on alternate days.’

‘Skeleton Wumman’ (Traverse: 22 – 26 April ’14)

‘Buchan is seamless, fluid and graceful. If he were Salome, I’d have the head of John the Baptist brought to him with an apple in its mouth.’

‘The Comedy of Errors’ (King’s: 16 – 19 April ’14)

“James Tucker as Adriana pushed out all the stops. He built up a fantastic head of steam, crashing into the terminus barriers with enough force to lift the plot’s ludicrous conclusion to the heights of hilarity.”

‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ (King’s: 16 – 19 April)

‘unambiguously, unashamedly, unpretentiously hilarious’

‘Wendy Hoose’ (Studio at the Festival Theatre: 29 March ’14)

‘a comedy of lack of manners, or of mannered people’s cringe-worthy attempts to misbehave’

‘This May Hurt A Bit’ (Traverse: 8 – 12 April’14)

‘The Grim Reaper cannot wait for the good times to roll.’

‘A Perfect Stroke’ (Traverse: 8 – 12 April ’14)

‘The superbly cast Scott Reid (Thomas) proves he’s still very much in-touch with his inner 16-year-old gobshite.’

‘The Medea’ (The Vault: 2 – 5 April ’14)

‘Sophie Harris’s Medea has as much self-loathing as hatred for Jason – her love for him does not make her weak, it hurts her and she wants the pain to stop.’

‘Love With a Capital ‘L” (Traverse: 1 – 5 April’14)

‘How, in the name of all that is haughty and holy ….. ?’

‘Double Bill’ (Traverse: 27 – 29 March’14)

“Open-sourced quality”