Category Archives: Rated: Outstanding

Work that aims high and hits every mark.

‘The BFG’ (Royal Lyceum Theatre: 28 November ’14 – 3 January ’15)

Posted in 4*, Rated: Outstanding, The Lyceum, Theatre by
Photo: Tommy Ga-Ken Wan

Photo: Tommy Ga-Ken Wan

“This is where dreams is beginning…”

Editorial Rating: 4 Stars: Outstanding

This is the Lyceum’s Christmassy adaptation of Roald Dahl’s ginormous classic. Its message is of humility and caution, all intertwined, and it’s very enjoyable. I loved Dahl’s children stories and still do. It was therefore a delight to hear David Wood’s success in retaining the whimsical language for this play within a play and to see director Andrew Panton realise it all on stage.

What better to represent the many rooms of childhood imaginings than a doll’s house? That’s designer Becky Minto’s large doll’s house across the breadth of the Lyceum’s stage and there’s a 00-Super gauge train track going around it, just as would be expected of any child’s play room. However, arguably the most enchanting aspect of the set is the BFG’s cave and specifically the hanging shelves that are lowered into view, adorned with jars of multi-coloured dreams. Simple but so effective. And there are the bright and innovative costumes to match. In and out of onesies, dresses and tops; on and off with hats and shoes; all changed at a quick pace – a pace wholly in keeping with the never-ending imaginations of children. One of the most impressive costumes in the wardrobe is the Queen’s – a majestic Claire Knight – whose wellie boots are topped with fur and whose royal emblem is emblazoned on a red gilet.

An integral part of this production is its combination of live music and pre-recorded sound effects. The cast’s rounded musical performances only serve to further enchant a spell-bound audience. The hard work of Claire McKenzie – musical director and composer– is evident in polished but yet playful performances. Her marriage of jaunty Scottish rhythms, fiddles and drums with children’s nursery rhymes and kazoos is expertly balanced.

BFG 2

Any decent toy box has its puppets and they are brought out to play big time in this production. The medium provides much comic input as well as creating numerous characters in the hands of a small cast. The puppetry is an original and attractive feature and gives literal form to the make-believe on stage. Robyn Milne’s infectious giggle and expressive performance brings the Sophie doll vibrantly to life whilst Lewis Howden’s mysterious and magnificent BFG is not so much scaled down – except for those ears! – as uplifted. Clumsy on his feet and tripping over his gobblefunk speech this BFG warms the hearts of the audience.
Children and adults alike respond happily to the energy and enjoyment of the performances and repeated ‘whizzpopping’ had the children – and many adults – giggling with glee. This is, after all, a treasured story that seems to have lived a lot longer than its thirty-two years might suggest. There is wonderful fancy evoked here, escapism and delightful nostalgia.

“Human beans is not thinking giants exist.” Well, after this great big and magic production this human bean thinks otherwise.

outstanding

StarStarStarStar

Reviewer: Amy King (Seen 3 December)

Visit ‘BFG’ at the Lyceum here

Visit our Assembly Roxy Bedlam Church Hill Theatre Festival Theatre King’s Theatre Other Pleasance, Potterrow & Teviot Summerhall The Lyceum The Stand Traverse archive.

THIS REVIEW HAS BEEN SUBEDITED

‘Chess: The Musical’ (Pleasance Theatre: 18 – 22 November ’14)

Posted in 4*, Dance, Music, Pleasance, Potterrow & Teviot, Rated: Outstanding, Theatre by
Photo: Oliver Buchanan

Photo: Oliver Buchanan

“Without Clark’s poise on which to pivot, the story might have given up and defected to the bar.”

Editorial Rating: 4 Stars: Outstanding

Priests, poets and psychiatrists all agree that the border between pure genius and melancholy madness is chequered with 64 black and white squares (with a white one always on the right). Next time you encounter that tramp in Potterrow Port, the one who’s convinced he’s Marcel Duchamp, ask him whether mad people gravitate to chess, or if chess makes them so. Chances are he’ll mutter darkly about the Lasker-Reichhelm position, but he might respond that the dedicated player lives “a monk-like existence and know[s] more rejection than any artist.”

The real Duchamp, the one who’d never been seen dead with a trolley from Aldi, directed those words to American prodigy Bobby Fischer, upon whose bizarre biography, Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus (loosely) based a musical.

Inspired by the 1972 match between Fischer and Boris Spassky, the ABBA alumni spun a yarn interweaving two grandmasters’ competition in the arena, over a lady, and among the ideological roadblocks of Cold War politics. Truthfully, Gilbert and Sullivan Chess is not. The undeniable success of this production says more about EUSOG’s commitment to sampling work pas a la D’Oyly Carte than it does about Andersson & Ulvaeus’ capacity for profound historical commentary post-1815.

We enter to find the orchestra have escaped from their pit, and are lording it above the action. Production Manager Tom Turner has crammed more steeldeck into the set than went into South Park’s Ladder to Heaven. Visually the effect is elegant, the band’s movements in stylish harmony with Sam Burkett’s clever choreography. However x4 keys, drums, bass guitar, x3 violins, x2 cellos, flute, x2 clarinet, x3 trumpets, trombone, bassoon, oboe, french horn as well as percussion will tend to make a fair bit of noise and some dampening field needed to be generated for the sake of the singers down below.

Douglas Clark shone as Anatoly, making the script & song his own so as to cover the extensive narrative arc laid out for him. Without Clark’s poise on which to pivot, the story might have given up and defected to the bar. Tadgh Cullen (as Freddie) nailed Fischer’s astonishing angst. It was easy to see why Lydia Carrington (as Florence, the lady interest) would love him, and even easier to see why she left. I thought having Cullen sing his big number an octave higher than his vocal range was a brilliant piece of 4th wall smashing artistry, subtly underlining Freddie’s inner turmoil. My companion, smarter than your average bear, though it was a Boo-Boo. Cullen’s commitment held out. Our cheering was long, loud and genuine.

Giselle Yonace (as the tournament arbiter), Caroline Hickling (as Anatoly’s Russian wife), Peter Green (as the US manager), and Steven Segaud (as the mendacious USSR fixer) found the space to establish bold performances, spotlighting and supporting the main cast’s quirks and qualities. When Segaud tapped the vein of comic villainy in his character, I wasn’t the only one LMAO.

Ethan Baird’s direction emphasised the characters and the story they had to tell. But rather like flat pack furniture after the third house move, Chess is starting to show both its age and essential flimsiness. The producers are a bit young (and far too stylish) to embrace an ‘80s nostalgic short hand, but would one double-breasted suit have killed them? Would a visual of tactical nuclear warheads rolling through Red Square been so amiss? Several pieces were missing from this puzzling-out of a not so retro script.

If a musical about chess, written by the blokes from ABBA, set in the Evil Empire’s dreary dying days isn’t enough to float your Typhoon-Class, then here’s the only reason you’ll ever need to get out and kill, maim or mutilate whatever man or beast stands between you and the front row seats: Lydia Carrington.

She’s amazing. Her gorgeous voice battles down the band like Eva Green casually knocking down Greeks in the latest 300 movie. Carrington’s give and take with the male leads is as beguiling as Keira Knightley, as sexy as Elisha Cuthbert, and as anticipateringly exciting as when Elizabeth Warren made a cameo opposite John Goodman in Alpha House.

If you don’t see Carrington now, you’ll only have to pretend you did later. Unlike my VHS of Learn Chess with Nigel Short (ft. Carol Vorderman) this is one to watch.

outstanding

StarStarStarStar

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Reviewer: Dan Lentell (Seen 19 November)

Visit EUSOG here

Visit our Pleasance, Potterrow & Teviot archive.

THIS REVIEW HAS NOT BEEN SUBEDITED

editor@edinburgh49.com

‘The Last Straw’ (Bedlam: 21 – 25 October ’14)

Posted in 3*, Bedlam, Rated: Outstanding, Theatre by
The Last Straw 1

Photos: Ummatiddle

“…  impro cuts loose, and cries of ‘F –ing awesome’ applaud play and cast.”

Editorial Rating: 3 Stars: Outstanding

A tale of two exclamations from ole stage coach territory. There’s “Whoa!” (Slow down) or “Wow!” (Stop right there. That’s too much). Either way, forget it. The foot brake’s worn, the wheel brake’s a joke, and you’re gonna get hurt, lady, if you stay up top. Best ride is in here, in Bedlam, with us. It’s a long journey of near on two and a half hours but it’s fun.

Director and writer Eric Geistfeld is from somewhere in Minnesota. Home is unlikely to be Bemidji but what the heck, The Last Straw is tv’s Fargo in a gothic farce. It’s intrepid. No quavering, gathered strings here; no hole in the ice but a useful trapdoor. There is breakneck writing, lunatic action, a menagerie of oddball characters, a yellow sex doll, and a lot of laughs.

Upright, young Edward, true-buttoned Brit and in financial services, is just married to Judy, all-American sweetheart, ‘pajamaed’ and with her teddy. They are to live with Violet, Judy’s mother, in Terror Towers. It might as well be Marine Corps ville. Ronald Reagan is venerated and there is a dead butler, resident throughout the first half, who wears aviators and is fed cake, but it’s gum-chewing, pistol packing Violet (Isobel Moulder) who calls the shots, literally. There will be no kids until she’s ashes and she’d be much obliged if her son in law would smoke them after she’s gone. Not that she plans to let him live long. Edward (Macleod Stephen) is a good sort, articulates so well, but realises that his body bag is being prepared. Ma has to go so he puts out a contract on her life, as she has on his.

The Last Straw 2

There is live keyboard but you hang onto the soundtrack. The Magnificent Seven sets us off and then it’s a trip through The First Cut is the Deepest, Our House, The House of the Rising Sun and, of course, Sweet Dreams are Made of This. By this point Edward has taken a slice of sponged cocaine cake and is away, tally-ho, with his toilet plunger and the weird fairies from the basement. The fourth wall crumbled a while back, impro cuts loose,  and cries of ‘F –ing awesome’ applaud play and cast.

The Last Straw goes out to glad-hand its audience. Is it like the Lothian state fair on the Meadows? Kind of. Scenes are gaudy, wisecracking sideshows, neatly divided by a door on wheels. They put their trust in ‘Together we’ll go far’, which just happens to be the slogan of the Wells Fargo bank. Especially successful are ‘The Murderelli Brothers’, possibly from Brooklyn, whose take on Alan Rickman is actually to die for; ‘The Existential Hecklers’ from outta Sartre and ‘The Sad Killer’. What of the main act in amongst these diversions? Beyond the closing cheer of ‘Happy Families’, there needn’t be one. For the best of reasons The Last Straw is a fearless, crowded, tiring, play.

And so to our adventurous rating and ranking of 3* OUTSTANDING. Three stars (safe) because you won’t be disappointed by such a full-on, have-a go, production. Colour coded red – Outstanding – because The Last Straw is remarkable rather than unbearable. I thought so, anyway.

outstanding

StarStarStar

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Reviewer: Alan Brown (Seen 22 October)

Visit Bedlam Homepage here

Visit our Assembly Roxy Bedlam Church Hill Theatre Festival Theatre King’s Theatre Other Pleasance, Potterrow & Teviot Summerhall The Lyceum The Stand Traverse archive.

THIS REVIEW HAS NOT BEEN SUBEDITED

‘Outlying Islands’ (Traverse: 1 – 4 October ’14)

Posted in 4*, Rated: Outstanding, Theatre, Traverse by
Martin Richardson. Photo: Graham Riddell

Martin Richardson.
Photo: Graham Riddell

“Wide, invigorating views in a small space”

Editorial Rating: 4 Stars: Outstanding

“‘Scuse my French,” says birdwatcher John – repeatedly. This thoroughly decent young man, BA. Cantab., has had enough – again! The year is 1939 and John is on the remotest of the Western Isles with stinking socks and his gimlet-eyed pal, Robert, who is bound to get the sweet girl first. You might hear the romantic airs of Local Hero within Outlying Islands, for the Celtic soundscape is lovely, but instead I see a fab, screwed up Tintin-esque adventure amongst the fork tailed petrels.

I reckon playwright David Greig likes Hergé’s impeccable line, after all, he did adapt Tintin in Tibet  for a Christmas show at the Barbican in 2005. Outlying Islands has the same startling and redemptive quality of that blameless story. However, the play’s audience also sees scary biological warfare and delightful sex.

It is the sharp clarity of the piece that impresses most. The first lines open with “I have noticed,” and it as if the audience are the ones with the binoculars, watching intently and enjoying what they discover. A bright and acute script paired with alert, insightful direction by Richard Baron is as effective as fixer in old style photographic processing, which you’ll be reminded of. We get focus and definition all throughout, with flashbulbs and nae pixels.

James Rottger and Helen Mackay. Photo: Graham Riddell

James Rottger and Helen Mackay.
Photo: Graham Riddell

We are way out west, literally in a rock burrow, and cinematically in Laurel and Hardy territory. Their 1937 film is Ellen’s favourite but for her ‘Free’ church uncle, Kirk (!), the cinema is a place of darkness where only the Fallen gather. London, by way of the same Calvinist conviction, is a ‘gannetry of random defecation’. What’s a young woman to do – apart from prepare puffin stew? Ellen’s happiness at finding an answer in unforeseen liberty is wonderful, and Helen MacKay is jubilant in the role. Nice John or Johnny, played straight and true by James Rotger, is not a happy chappie when confronted by deep feelings – arguably like Tintin – therefore his discomfort, naked on the kitchen table, is understandable. Martin Richardson is utterly convincing as Robert. Probably amoral, certainly sensitive, fiercely rational, and undoubtedly bad for Kirk’s health, he has the dash of the pagan about him. Crawford Logan has the unsympathetic (adult) roles, playing Kirk, who is mean in spirit, calculating, a relic to be parodied, and, very briefly, the Captain of the ship that returns to take them off the island and back to …. Ullapool?

During the referendum campaign David Greig spoke of Scotland and a Scottish population that had been wearing UK goggles for long enough: ‘goggles which say you never ask questions’. ‘Outlying Islands’ has come back, post Yes/No, and offers wide, invigorating views in a small space. You might pick holes at some cartoonish excess or at the fly-away innocence of the plot or even at some speech bubble dialogue, but I saw an excellent production from  Firebrand Theatre; the same company that brought ‘Blackbird’ (not Leach’s petrel) to Summerhall in February. That was outstanding too.

outstanding

StarStarStarStar

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Reviewer: Alan Brown (Seen 1 October)

Visit Outlying Islands homepage here.

THIS REVIEW HAS BEEN SUBEDITED

The Edinburgh49 Prize: for distinctive and memorable theatre (2014). Winners!

Posted in *Ratings, Features, Rated: Nae Bad, Rated: Outstanding, Rated: Unrated, The End of Normality 2014, Theatre by

outstanding

“CONGRATULATIONS!”

Editorial Rating: Outstanding

The winners of the first ever Edinburgh49 Prize: for distinctive & memorable theatre (sponsored by Alechemy Brewing) were announced on 10 July at our ‘End of Normality’ party held at Assembly Roxy.

The event marked the city’s transition into full-on Festivals mode and was a chance to celebrate all that’s weird and wonderful about the other 49 weeks in the arts calendar.

Not only did our sponsor, Alechemy Brewing of Livingstone, ensure that everyone was well watered throughout the night, they also provided the star prize for our winning pub quiz team, a powerful combination of Royal Lyceum’s marketing team and NTS producers, who received a chance to sample 11 bottles from across Alechemy’s range.

Despite on-going tours and pre-Fringe commitments, we were delighted to welcome so many friends old and new to join us for the official announcement of the 6 winning productions, chosen from the more than 75 shows reviewed by us since last September.

In date order, the winning shows are:

With special mention of The #1 Loch Ness Monster Experience performed by Bruce Morton and Karen Fraser Docherty at Edinburgh College, 24 June, 2014 as part of the National Theatre of Scotland’s The Great, Yes, No, 5 Minute Theatre Show.

Charlotte Productions celebrate the sucess of Goblin's Story in style.

Charlotte Productions celebrate the sucess of Goblin’s Story in style.

Many congratulations again to all the winners and many, many thanks again to all the companies, participants and venues who have made 2013-14 such a wonderful year with which to begin Edinburgh49. Our job for 2013-14 was to establish the title and prove it could endure from one Fringe to another. We’ve done that. Next year we’d like to expand our coverage into new genres – can you help us?

There are some incredibly talented individuals operating across the genres in this city. If you think you can help amplify word-of-mouth with passionate, peer-review style reviews which help producers and punters alike – please get in touch!

No more reviews for now, as we circle around the Fringe and live up to our name, but we will be back in September.

See you on the far side!

Alan, Richard & Dan

‘Pressure’ (Lyceum: 1 – 24 May ‘ 14)

Posted in Rated: Outstanding, The Lyceum, Theatre by

Pressure handbill

‘The clock counts down, isobars group, weather fronts advance’

Editorial Rating: Outstanding

A new play by David Haig. Directed by John Dove.

Pressure blows up a storm of anticipation. Remember the first handbill: warships steaming full ahead out of the binoculars and heading straight for you? If you have seen The Longest Day, the film about D-Day and the Normandy landings on June 6 1944 (but it helps if you’re over 50 and a boy), then remember that scene when a German officer adjusts his Zeiss lenses and sees the invasion force emerge through the dawn mist. Shock and awe big time! Impossible to create much the same on stage? Not if you can read a barometer and like the joke of employing a meteorologist to forecast shooting conditions for Gone with the Wind.

That was filming in 1939 in sunny LA County, whereas Pressure builds over four actual days in 1945 in Southwick House, near Portsmouth. US General Dwight D. Eisenhower is in command but depends upon a plumber’s son from Dalkeith to tell him what the weather is going to do. High winds mean high seas, overturned landing craft and limited air cover. Should he or should he not postpone? And, General, this is British weather we’re talking about.

Enter James Stagg PhD, RAF pro tem, ace meteorologist on tenterhooks. Cue very big charts, 5 to 6 low pressure systems, 2 high ones, flurries of weather reports, black Bakelite telephones, pots of caffeine and introduce the fact that beyond 24 to 36 hours the science of forecasting is all informed guesswork. Where, over there and by the way, are Rommel’s tank divisions? You grasp the fog of war.

The uncomplicated story takes hold very quickly. Stagg’s gloomy, inclement forecast is opposed by his American opposite number, trained in Beverley Hills and on the Italian beachheads. Lt. Kay Summersby and Eisenhower are an established item; conceivably a chaste one. The clock counts down, isobars group, weather fronts advance and Stagg suffers personal agonies of his own.

Writer David Haig is James Stagg and is a near elemental force. He stands awkwardly to attention in front of his commanders but provides reports of such detail that you … are blown away, as it were. This is a man, you sense, who cannot be sure that he is right but will move heaven and earth to move the odds in his favour.

In his life Eisenhower was a lucky general. Malcolm Sinclair plays him on a long fuse and a tight smile, unbowed by his massive responsibility and with a winning streak straight out of the end zone. It is a calm, light time (rare in Pressure) when Stagg tries to explain rugby football to the general who clearly will never understand why the ball is passed backwards.

Laura Rogers as Kay Summersby is a delight. The compassionate role moves her imperturbably to and fro between the five star general, whom she has known for two years, and the private, undemonstrative, scientist and allows both characters to open up. In this reading Summersby is probably David Haig at his most imaginative.

Director John Dove has those fine, clear- sighted Lyceum productions of Arthur Miller plays to his credit. In relation to this current production The Man Who Had All the Luck might as well be Eisenhower’s experience. In Pressure Dove succeeds not simply with pace and control but he also has stage actors in uniform to contend with, which weighs more significantly than civilian costume, and is never to be taken for granted. We are behind the lines, of course, but you never doubt that there is a war going on. There is just the one violent reminder when a plane goes ‘down’ and that seems a little unnecessary given the intensity of the on-stage action. Pressure is a taut, winning drama and you will appreciate the energy and skills of the creative team behind it, from blackout lighting to the drone of bomber formations.

It is, finally, David Haig’s play and is, I think, a major achievement. An exciting, dramatized, chronicle.

outstanding

Reviewer: Alan Brown (Seen 8 May)

Visit Pressure homepage here.

‘Factor 9’ (Traverse: 24 – 26 April’14)

Posted in Rated: Outstanding, Theatre, Traverse by
Matthew Zajac as Bruce (Norval)

Matthew Zajac as Bruce (Norval)

‘Blood bags swing in the central section … Death certificates litter the stage floor throughout.’

Editorial Rating: Outstanding

There is an eye-catching stainless steel angel outside the Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service centre in Ellen’s Glen Road, Liberton, barely four miles south of the Traverse. There is also, facing Reception, a rust streaked 40 cubic yard capacity waste skip. Factor 9 shows us what happened when, in 1984, contaminated blood product did not end up in the bin.

Injury, pain, hurt and a raging sense of injustice is how writer Hamish MacDonald sees it. His script could have taken on some late gothic horror, as in Stevenson’s Olalla, but that is torpid and exotic compared to the energy and ghastly proximity of Factor 9.

Dramatic, genuine, testimony is given by two haemophilia sufferers, Rab (Stewart Porter) and Bruce (Matthew Zajac). Together, but occasionally taking different parts along the way, they tell the story of their lives. In medical reports and studies they are classified as ‘Unfortunate individuals’ who were exposed to that single batch of HIV contaminated factor VIII concentrate from Scottish donors. Rab would have been a ghillie but now only drives into the hills to scream insults at the view. Bruce tried to be a nurse but is thrown off his course – and onto the streets – as an unacceptable infectious risk. He has a recurring hopeless dream of taking a hammer to water and trying to smash his way out of all-enveloping misery. Bruce has, in his words, become shockproof: “Fucking unfortunate?” No, try “Fucking incredible”.

“How could this happen?” is the furious and tendentious question that fronts Factor 9. Director Ben Harrison and Designer Emily Jones get the answers out in impressive and surprising order. Visual, contextual information is screened on the grid squares of a threefold set. Important dates and locations clearly register, not least the security fencing around the Arkansas state prison(s) where donor prisoners are paid for their blood, some of it infected with viral hepatitis and HIV. White symbols turn red when, of those 32 patients in that 1984 cohort, another one is ‘away’. A lab bench wheels into use as a bed. Utility chairs are in the Waiting area where Rab and Bruce and their families spend a horrible amount of time. Blood bags swing in the central section and the names of drug companies – notoriously IG Farben and latterly Hoechst, Armour, Baxter and Bayer – are indexed above. Death certificates litter the stage floor throughout.

L. Stewart Porter as Rab (Mackie)

L. Stewart Porter as Rab (Mackie)

Actors Porter and Zajac are utterly convincing. You see Rab and Bruce briefly, innocently, having fun in the Children’s Hospital when their parents have gone home for the night but otherwise, as stigmatised plague-carriers and guinea-pigs, it is their outright, unequivocal anger that registers. Rab knows magic tricks and the vehemence of his ironic “Abracadabra” when significant medical records just disappear is punishing. Zajac also plays the haematology consultant and actually wins sympathy for a professional who, grappling with the uncertain and the unknown, finally does not know what to say. The scene when an anatomical skeleton is substituted for the doctor and ‘examined’ by his patients is ingenious and macabre.

Factor 9 is properly more than a tongue-lashing for pharma. Neither is it a pitiless exposee of medical practice in the face of an emerging pandemic within the haemophila community. It is much better than viral polemic because of terrific performance and inventive direction. In the House of Commons the Contaminated Blood (Support for Infected and Bereaved Persons) Bill waits for its 2nd Reading. This Dogstar Theatre production should introduce it.

outstanding

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Reviewer: Alan Brown (Seen 24 April)

Visit Factor 9‘s homepage here and preview the show’s Fringe ’14 run here.

‘Blackbird’ (Summerhall: 26 February – 1 March ’14)

Posted in Rated: Outstanding, Summerhall, Theatre by

“An outstanding performance from both cast and crew… the kind of production which makes it impossible to imagine the play in anyone else’s hands”

Editorial Rating: Outstanding

First performed in 2005, Blackbird is a terrifying play.  It’s terrifying because of its subject matter: a sexual relationship between a 12-year-old girl and a middle-aged man.  It’s terrifying because it highlights the lifelong consequences, both for the victim and her abuser.  But more than that, it’s terrifying because it dares to ask some forbidden questions – evoking just the slightest touch of sympathy for the devil, and challenging us to wonder how a once-decent man can possibly have fallen so far.  It’s morally troublesome, sexually explicit, and profoundly disturbing at times.

A decade after her defilement – and now a young woman – Una returns unexpectedly, determined to confront her abuser Ray.  Ray, in the meantime, has admitted his sins and served his time in prison, and seems to have re-built a modestly respectable life.  But that, of course, isn’t quite the full story; at the heart of the play is a series of well-paced revelations, which lead the audience through the gamut of possible responses to such a shocking tale.  And they’re all delivered through a single, credible dialogue, a masterclass in exposition done well.

But all that counts for nothing if the actors aren’t up to the task – and in Greg Wagland and Romana Abercromby, Blackbird finds the cast such a challenging script demands.  Both actors bring a reckless intensity to their roles, an urgent mutual desire to tell their shared tale.  As Una, Abercromby is sassy and bold, coolly aware of the power she now wields – a veneer which makes it all the more shocking when the true impact of the abuse is finally revealed.  Wagland, meanwhile, presents a desperate, imploring Ray, yet shows a hint of imperiousness too; it’s a many-layered performance, that delivers a lot more subtlety than first meets the eye.

While the principal actors each have their moments in the spotlight, the pivotal scene belongs to Abercromby.  As Una recalls how her life unravelled, she’s helped by Jon Beales’ haunting sound design – which carries just enough echoes of a seaside town at midnight to transport us into her painfully-remembered world.  It’s details like that which make this production so impressive, and Abercromby’s words are perfectly synchronized with the soundscape.  The whole play, in fact, is flawlessly well-performed.

Firebrand Theatre bill their production as a “site-specific staging”, which is rather stretching the point, but director Richard Baron does make excellent use of the unconventional space at Summerhall.  He turns the old-style lecture theatre into a claustrophobic and uncompromising arena – a courtroom where the audience sits in uneasy judgement on both accuser and accused.  And Baron and the actors have crafted a restlessly physical performance, using constant movement to stoke the pressure without ever feeling unnatural or forced.

If there’s a criticism to make of Harrower’s script, it’s that his symbolism is often heavy-handed: the sordid nature of the story is reflected by a squalid, rubbish-strewn stage.  And the narrative stops more than it ends, as though even the playwright didn’t know quite how to respond to his worrying final revelation.  But this is an outstanding performance from both cast and crew – the kind of production which makes it impossible to imagine the play in anyone else’s hands.  Firebrand’s reputation preceded them to Edinburgh, and it’s clear that reputation is very much deserved.

outstanding

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Reviewer: Richard Stamp (Seen 27 February)

Visit Firebrand Theatre homepage here.

‘In The Heights’ (Churchill Theatre: 11-15 Feb ’14)

Posted in Church Hill Theatre, Rated: Outstanding, Theatre by

In the Heights 2

“bursting with life, energy and creative passion.”

Editorial Rating: Outstanding

Usnavi runs a small bodega in Washington Heights, the (very) upper-West Side district in New York City. His store is a focus point for his community, drawn to Manhattan from across Latin America. Usnavi has two ambitions, to return to his native Dominican Republic and to marry his beloved Vanessa. He lives a bohemian life shared with a cast of vibrant characters, his family, his friends, his customers, his neighbours – but change is in the air.

We enter to find that Sergeant Pepper has moved to Sesame Street. The brownstone shopfronts and stoops are characterful and real. They are offset with an interplay of glorious technicolour rainbows and abstracted geometrical shapes which conjure up images of NYC’s metro map. Not since the art deco glory of a parallel biopic of Coward and Novello at the 2012 Fringe have I so achingly wanted to inhabit a set.

As is known to anyone who has felt the wind rushing up his kilt at a rooftop Brooklyn wedding; as anyone will attest who has watched the the sun set over Astoria with a tumbler of Caol Ila in hand; the most important feature of the Manhattan skyline is the sky. It is a vast and magnificent canopy. How incredible it is then that this unequalled canvas, spread across the greatest metropolis there ever is or was, has been recreated in the dignified intimacy of Morningside’s Churchill Theatre.

On the set, between the sky and the street corner where Usnavi lives, towers a silhouette of the George Washington Bridge – a physical siren song, calling the dreamers to stray from their cosy familiarity. This landmark links sky and street in a set so artful that I am compelled to refer the reader to the 1755 poaching of the renowned Dr. Cullen from the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow. Further, I must state that the Footlights, in obtaining the services of Andrew McDivitt (a final year arts student at Weegie University) as Set Designer, have rendered a service to their fellow Edinbuggers of no less importance than Cullen’s installation in the medical faculty at Edinburgh – if they have paid for McDivitt’s return rail ticket, they should insist on tearing it up.

Many of Usnavi’s customers are cabbies working for Kevin and Camila Rosario’s taxi company, located across the street. Kevin in particular carries a weight of aspiration. Through sheer hard work he has raised his family’s fortunes to the point where his beloved daughter, Nina, can attend Stamford and climb the Ivy League into realms he can only imagine.

The Heights are abuzz when Nina’s returns. In her are stored many of the other locals’ hopes and dreams but she brings with her unsettling news which might unravel the industrious fabric of the community.

Benjamin Aluwihare as Usnavi heads an exceptional cast. Lin-Manuel Miranda, the American composer, rapper, lyricist, and actor who wrote In The Heights would be thrilled to see his characters brought to life so vividly. This is a big company but space is found for every member to shine. The ensemble are magnificent – lively, well-drilled, fluid – they would have to be in order to frame the superb character work going on around them.

It’s not just that Alex Poole captures Kevin’s arrogance without ever losing his pathos, or that Jordan Roberts-Lavery as Sonny is light without ever being thickly fluffy (think Fred Ewanuick in Corner Gas); Becki Clark brilliantly combines Vanessa’s carefreeness as well as her deeper longings and Aisling Brady uncannily inhabits the aged, matriarchal frame of Usnavi’s Abuela – what matters is that these talented team players can put two and two together and get five.

The relationship between Kirsty Findlay’s Nina and Nitai Levi’s Benny is heartfelt and deeply moving. With so much work to do they still make the time to give and take, allowing each other room to manoeuvre and time to shine. If Elayne Gray brings the same patient goodwill to her role as Footlight’s Señorita Presidente as she does to that of Carla, then it’s not hard to imagine how this mind-blowing production came about. Aluwihare tells us he aspires to continue acting to a professional level. You need a new ambition mate. That one’s done and dusted.

“Just ask yourself, does it do what it says on the tin?” It’s the best piece of advice a reviewer can have. In The Heights is billed as a toe tappin’, all singing, all dancing extravaganza and by Jove it is that all right! The acoustics aren’t perfect, the sound levels aren’t totally adjusted – but I don’t care. No-less-so than the build, the soundscape is evocative of the pop-up Havana Club Bar under the David Hume Tower two Fringes back – bursting with life, energy and creative passion.

I would like to own the CD of this production but that might not be practical for copyright reasons. What can be done, what needs to be done, what must be done, is to lock Dan Glover and his band permanently in George Square Gardens (there’s already a fence) so that everyone can feel like we felt hearing them play. The highest compliment about the music I can think up, is that it totally did justice to the set and performances.

I am frequently told to go sit in the corner by colleagues affronted at my suggestion that the problem with musical theatre is that constantly touring productions get coated in layers of lacquer until they are rigid and brittle. I don’t know whether Footlight’s four night run of In The Heights proves or disproves my point.

All I can say for certain is that Ronan Radin as Piragua Guy rests the case that we gents of a chunkier build can out awesome your backflipping, pirouetting, skinny-malinky long legs and steal even the biggest, brightest, brilliantest show you’re likely to see in Edinburgh before August.

outstanding

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Reviewer: Dan Lentell (Seen 11 February)

Visit In The Heights homepage here.

Bestiaires (Traverse: 3 Feb.’14)

Posted in Rated: Outstanding, Theatre, Traverse by

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“Zeus is packed off, squashed into a crate marked ‘Fragile’, for sale to China – again.”

Editorial Rating:  Outstanding

Bestiaires is part of the Visual theatre Festival, 31 January to 8 February, at the Traverse Theatre. Edinburgh49 is reviewing four productions. Bestiaires was the opening show.

Mythology is flexible and so is foam rubber. This provides Duda Paiva and his company with all it needs to create Bestiaires or – for its Norwegian audience last September– Manbeast. The work is not a monster manual, although there’s a golden, hungry, Cerberus; nor is it really an outing for the properties of polyurethane/latex, although they’re wonderful; no, this is about the enduring life of the gods in our more secular time. The exclamation “For Gods’ sake!” is used often enough to make you think, sadly, of how they’re getting on.

Not too many gods – Cupid, Persephone, Hades, Zeus and Athene principally – and the Medusa, transformed from fit dancer, Ilija Surla, (that’s elasticity for you – check out your Pindar) to writhing Gorgon puppet. Nowadays all is far from well on Olympus. Death-dealing Hades has become western ‘civilisation’s’ best-selling export and Zeus is packed off, squashed into a crate marked ‘Fragile’, for sale to China – again. For the time being: a relative concept in this show of seventy memorable minutes – Cupid (Mart Müürisepp) holds the stage as rueful narrator and demi-Chorus: his bow, a long microphone lead; with a hip flask of whisky to lend him a dram of Dutch courage.

Nevertheless and in generous spirit (to restore Greek finances) Cupid would reunite a wilting Persephone and a Hades, who’s looking the other way at Medusa’s pects. Cue Hades’s immortal line: “You’re hot. You want to party?” There’s some easy morphing of Demeter and Persephone but no matter; what has real, unequivocal presence is the dancing of puppeteer and foam rubber puppet. By now, since 2004, this is the company trademark and it is exceptional. Video animation of spring flowers and unerring sound, musical and vocal, complete the impression that everything on stage is alive, not least those gods.

Ester Natzijl is literally inside the square head of Zeus who does not stand tall. Instead he’s reduced to amused contemplation of the F word, as applicable to his small condition, as in “Get me the F out of here!” or “What the F!”. Classically moulded Hades gets grossly fat and cannot regain his place. Three mouthed Cerberus may play ‘Fetch’ with Cupid’s wig but it can still get very dark out there. Put the mirror of eternal beauty in the hands of these gods and you invite trouble. Medusa and Athene dance in jealous, nightmarish combination.

There is a compilation of acts on dudapaiva.com called Break the Legend. Bestiaires is original work of high quality that would do just that. Zeus, unfazed by market conditions in China, gives a homily on love – of all his attributes, the least familiar – that has probably held him together since those titan wars. It must be the magic quality of that rubber for, as Duda Paiva puts it, “I’m just fascinated by foam, because it is generous, it is about generosity.  It’s such a giver.”

In a respectful word: awesome!

outstanding

Reviewer: Alan Brown (Seen 3 February)

Visit Duda Paiva Company homepage here.