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Dateline: 23rd June, 2002 Traverse Snippets What's Happening at the Traverse in the Forthcoming Edinburgh Fringe FestivalWorld Premiere - Traverse 1 You see a woman. You see your mother. The surface looks like everything you'd expect but these walls swallow people. It's just a thought but you might want to turn round and never come back. Josie is visiting her mother Fay for the first time in 15 years. She's never walked into a prison before. Fay is serving life for murder. Iron is an intense psychological drama in which a mother and daughter try to break through the barriers of time, memory and punishment which separate them. But between them lies the fact of murder. A murder Josie cannot remember and Fay has always tried to forget. Uncovering the memories they share is more dangerous than either of them can imagine. IRON is the latest play by Rona Munro whose previous work for stage includes YOUR TURN TO CLEAN THE STAIR, BOLD GIRLS, THE MAIDEN STONE and SNAKE. Her work for film and television includes Ken Loach's LADYBIRD LADYBIRD and the Golden Globe nominated AIMEE AND JAGUAR. Her next film REHAB with director Antonia Bird is currently in production with the BBC. World Premiere - Traverse 1 Summer 1939. Two young Cambridge ornithologists, Robert and John arrive on a remote Hebridean island to conduct a wildlife study for the government. Robert is the combatitive urban incomer and John a reserved man fascinated by the unique bird life on the island. They are met by the elderly Iain Kirk and his young niece Ellen, their hosts and the island's only inhabitants. He sees nearby Stornoway as 'a house of sin', she dreams of cinema and escape. But even before the end of their first day on the island, the harsh isolation and pagan atmosphere begins to draw raw emotions and behaviour to the surface. On this outlying island, on the brink of war, they succumb to their desires and an immense human drama unfolds. I have noticed from the study of maps Outlying Islands is the fourth collaboration between David Greig and director Philip Howard after EUROPE (1994), THE ARCHITECT (1996) and THE SPECULATOR (Festival Grec d’Estiu, Barcelona; Edinburgh International Festival 1999). David Greig is also a founder member of Suspect Culture (TIMELESS, MAINSTREAM, CASANOVA, LAMENT); his other work for Theatre includes a children’s play for the Traverse DANNY 306 + ME (4 EVER) and VICTORIA (RSC). He has written a number of radio plays for BBC Radio and is currently working on a full-length feature film for Kudos. European Premiere - Traverse 1 A comic musical fantasy from legendary American director Joseph Chaikin and Philadelphia’s extraordinary Pig Iron. A newlywed couple falls asleep at the dinner table; an insomniac finds herself trapped in a Gilbert and Sullivan musical; a woman visits her brother in the coma ward only to find him absorbed in a business meeting. Poetic and absurd, Shut Eye counterpoints daring physical feats and ecstatic song with intimate reflections. European Premiere - Traverse 1 A Bollywood screen potboiler brought to the stage by playwright Sohaila Kapur. The play is set in idyllic times, when survival meant more than just the race to make ends meet. It was a creative time, the suave seventies. It wears the guise of a Bollywood movie of yore, tackling issues of those days through its traditional epic style. Written in contemporary Hinglish, the play draws a portrait of the city of Mumbai. Politics and corruption, socialism and trade unionism; communalism and Bollywood and in the midst of it all, love and sex. The cast includes Shibani Kashyap, one of India's leading popstars. World Premiere - Traverse 1 The Blue Orphan uses striking imagery, poetic text, and a powerful musical score to unveil an old paper mill town on the eve of a cataclysmic storm. The random life paths of the townsfolk intersect in a single fateful moment that transcends the senseless devastation into a celebration of love and the endurance of the human spirit. Catalyst Theatre is the two-time Fringe First/Herald Angel award-winning theatre company that created The House of Pootsie Plunket and Elephant Wake. Scottish Premiere - Traverse 1 An owl awakes in a pea green boat. It is accompanied by its natural predator. There is honey. What caused this dangerous situation? Is it a strange Naval experiment? Is it a meaningless exercise in poetic whimsy? Pea Green Boat is a one-man scratch performance, with slides, music and perhaps some water. Stewart is fresh from his collaboration on the Battersea Art Centre's summer smash Jerry Springer: The Opera and the publication of his debut novel The Perfect Fool. World Premiere - Traverse 2 A vicious tale of love, revolt and beauty. In a drowned world - how far will you go to save your own skin? The Fringe First multi-award winning Paines Plough (Tiny Dynamite, Splendour, Riddance and Crave) fresh from their success with Helmet (a co-production with the Traverse Theatre Company) present a remarkable play by young Welsh writer Gary Owen (Crazy Gary's Mobile Disco), most recently lauded for his success at the National Theatre with Shadow of a Boy. World Premiere - Traverse 2 Urgent, awkward, political. Safety is the second (Thorpe’s award-winning Static was the first) in a trilogy of plays written in response to violent, political (and foreign) conflict and its representation in the media. Double Fringe First winners (Static and Neutrino) Unlimited Theatre return to Edinburgh with a humdinger of a new play about photographing the truth, lying to yourself, almost drowning and peanuts. World Premiere - Traverse 2 Stitching is a bizarre and darkly comic love story. In the light of a pregnancy, a faithless couple pick apart their sexual history, stitch by painful stitch . Can it be mended? Stitching is Neilson's most shocking and intimate work to date, presented by Fringe First Award-Winning new writing companies The Red Room (Producers of The Bogus Woman) and The Bush. This is unmissable, taboo-breaking theatre. World Premiere - Traverse 2 Weather is a whirlwind solo with music, dance and clowning by Volcano - the multiple award-winning Canadian theatre company that produced Lambton Kent last year at the Traverse. It is produced in association with The Moving Company one of Toronto's newest physical theatre companies. European Premiere - Traverse 2 Absurd journey into the imaginative and deliciously irreverent world of one very funny man through hysterically driven slapstick humour with dark undercurrents of isolation and loneliness. The ghosts of Charlie Chaplin, Jacques Tati and Benny Hill are evoked by this chubby little man - who brushes his hair with his electric toothbrush and loves a game of after-dinner charades. Wicked new comedy by creators of The Business…as usual (Winner, Best Comedy 1999 Melbourne Fringe). One Man's Business was the recipient of a Moosehead Comedy Award, and winner of the Foreign Exchange Award for the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. Scottish Premiere - Traverse 2 Are you sick to death of being herded en masse into compartments by
the consumer society? If the answer is YES, become an Ego Warrior. Learn the Ego Warrior
Oath! Join Neil Innes - Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band (Urban Spaceman), Monty Python, The Rutles and The Innes Book of Records and John Dowie - the Fairy Godmother of Alternative Comedy, writer of West End smash Jesus My Boy and co-writer/director of 2000 Festival hit Arthur Smith sings Leonard Cohen. Event - Traverse 3 @ The Scotch Malt Whisky Society The Traverse has burst at the seams. This year the Traverse is pleased to announce Traverse 3, made possible through our developing relationship with The Scotch Malt Whisky Society. During the Festival the Traverse is overwhelmed with audiences and theatre companies so it becomes impossible to showcase the year-round development work that is at the centre of our activities. At Traverse 3 we will be presenting a special Best of The Monday Lizard, highlights from the popular monthly platform - a mix of satire, short plays and the best in new music. Join us, chill out and sink a dram in the sumptous surroundings of this world-renown society's home. Event - Traverse 3 @ The Scotch Malt Whisky Society The Scotch Malt Whisky Society provides the perfect setting for a musical tour of the late night bars of Europe featuring songs from Brecht, Weill and Sondheim, produced by Wimbledon Theatre. Price includes light supper and a dram. For facts and figures of the 2001 Edinburgh Fringe, go to our Fringe 2001 Factsheet.
Please note that all three Archive indices are very long and will therefore take some time to download.
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