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Edinburgh 2007 Previews - the ClassicsDateline: 24th July, 2007Everyone knows that the Fringe is the place to see exciting (and, let's be honest, not terribly exciting or even totally awful) new theatre, but it is also a place where many classics of British and even world theatre make an appearance. Some of these are classics in the true sense, plays which have stood the test of a very long time, and some are modern classics. It's true that amateur companies often choose this kind of play to perform in Edinburgh, but professionals do too, so it's well worth taking a look at what can be seen there this year. We've already looked at Shakespeare, so what about his contemporaries? Christopher Marlowe always makes an appearance and the most popular of his plays is always Dr Faustus. It has one outing this year (at Sweet ECA in weeks 2 and 3), although this production seems to fit in the "mucked about" category we mentioned in our Shakespeare preview. "Flintlock Thetare," we are told, "bring their unique brand of cartoonish mayhem to ...Marlowe's geat comedy of horrors." It's less common to see Middleton and Rowley, but this year Eyeball Theatre brings The Changeling to C Chambers Street. But it is not alone among the Jacobeans, for John Ford's 'Tis Pity She's a Whore plays at Bedlam in week 1 only. The Beaux' Strategem plays at the Quaker Meeting House fir just six performances between 13th and 25th. Coincidentally the French playwright Molière was born in the same year that The Changeling was first produced (1622) - oh, what a forced connection! - and his The Hypochondriac (Le Malade Imaginaire) appears this year at Sweet Grassmarket. Also from the French classics is a site-specific production of Racine's Phaedra at C at Craigmillar Castle - and there's a free bus transfer service from Chambers Street. The Rover by England's first female playwright, Aphra Behn, at C Cubed completes the line-up of seventeenth century plays, so we'll look back almost 2,000 years before to the Greeks, who this year are represented by two productions of Euripides' Bacchae - Bacchae by Black and White Rainbow at C Chambers Street and Bacchic by Actors of Dionysus at the Gilded Balloon Teviot - and two productions of the same writer's The Trojan Women, at Sweet ECA in week 3 and at the Church Hill Theatre in week 2. Strangely enough, there isn't a single Ibsen or Chekhov at this year's Fringe, but there is one production of a Swindberg play: Miss Julie (C soco) which has been relocated by its producers, the Birmingham-Southern College Theatre of Alabama, to the American deep south of today. However there are productions of The Maids (Venue 45: weeks 2 and 3) and Ionesco's The Lesson (Assembly@Hill Street), The Government Inspector (Assembly Universal Arts: weeks 2 and 3), Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita (S soco: weeks 1 and 2), which complete the European classics. Oscar Wilde gets two productions - The Importance of Being Earnest at Greenside and The Picture of Dorian Gray at Diverse Attractions - but otherwise it twentieth century classics from then on. Coward is represented by Hay Fever (Murrayfield Parish Chuirch Hall) and The Vortex (Diverse Attractions), Shaw by St Joan (Greyfriars Kirk) and Journey's End, is at Greenside for week 2 only. A Fringe favourite - Guy Masterson's one-man version of Under Milk Wood - gets two performances (13th and 20th) at the Assembly in George Street, but the play itself runs for the whole festival at C Cubed. Otherwise there are only post-1950 classics on offer. Unusually there's only one Beckett this year: Happy Days is at C Chambers Street for week 2 only. Tom Stoppard fares better with Arcadia at Bedlam in week 1, The Real Inspector Hound at C Cubed on even dates from 12th to 26th. and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, also at C Cubed, from 5th to 14th. Anther Fringe favourite is also conspicuously under-represented this year: Berkoff's East plays at the Roman Eagle Lodge only in week3. This must be some kind of a record! Also with just one production is Caryl Churchill whose A Number is at Sweet Grassmarket from 2nd to 19th. Also (probably) fitting in to the modern classic category are Brendan Behan's Borstal Boy (Augustine's: week 1 only), Patrick Marber's Closer (Brunton Theatre, week 1 only), Sarah Kane's Crave (C Cubed: all weeks), A Day in the Death of Joe Egg (Augustine's: week 1), The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (Greenside: weeks 2 and 3), Someone Who'll Watch Over Me (C soco: weeks 1 and 2) and What the Butler Saw (Rocket@Demarco Roxy Art House: weeks 2 and 3). Of course, it wouldn't be a Fringe without David Mamet, and this year we have Duck Variations (Zoo Southside: week 2) and Oleanna (Rocket@Demarco Roxy Art House: weeks 2 and 3). Again, a little less Mamet than usual. And finally, while on the subject of American plays, there are two productions of the classic comedy The Odd Couple, one (the original version) at Venue 45 in week 3 only, and the other (the female version) at Sweet ECA in week 2, and one production of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (Rocket@Demarco Roxy Art House: week 1 only).
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