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The
Edinburgh Fringe
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Fringe 2000 Reviews (7)Slide Goodness knows how many one-woman shows there are at this year's Fringe: it seems like hundreds! Slide is just one of them. "We began with the idea," says the programme note, "that after giving birth, even in the 21st Century, women's expectation of life, of themselves, of partners, can slide out of reach." To present this idea, Nicolette Kay has chosen the metaphor of an actress trying to perform a play about Lady Mary Wortley Montague, an 18th Century poet and satirist, whilst being constantly interrupted by calls about her children on her mobile phone. The metaphor works, eliciting much sympathetic laughter from the (totally female apart from me) audience. However, what I could not understand, bearing in mind the ostensible purpose of the piece, was the choice of Mary Wortley Montague's letters (which form the text of the play). They are all to her husband, both before and after marriage, and show a woman ignoring - or perhaps not even seeing - the danger signs, the self-centredness, of her future husband. To 18th Century society, the programme notes tell us, Lady Mary was a dangerous, subversive horror, but there is no sign of this here: she is merely a woman trying to get and hold the attention of an uncaring lover/husband. So, altough the metaphor works, the argument is weakened by the text of the play itself. The small audience enjoyed it, as did I, but, ultimately, for me it didn't quite come off. White Men with Weapons Based on Coetzee's own experiences, White Men with Weapons chronicles the effects on the South African military of the release of Nelson Mandela and the un-banning of the African National Congress. It's a one-man show, following a conscript through his time in the army, satirising the officers and non-coms he met and their uncomprehending reactions to the fact that the "enemy" was no longer the enemy. Coetzee attacks both the military mind and its deeply entrenched racism, and reveals the confusion of white society trying to come to terms with the new dispensation. To really hit home, satire needs a firm grounding in reality, but here the various protagonists are presented with an almost comic-book exaggeration, which does tend to lessen its effectiveness to some degree. That said, however, the play works well, with moments of great humour and of horror, particularly the oupouring of racial hatred from the commanding officer. Rum and Vodka and The Good Thief Two monologues by Conor McPherson, writer of the West End hit The Weir. Rum and Vodka This would be funny if it wasn't so tragic! I'm talking here about the situation in which the narrator finds himself, by the way, not the play. As a result of nothing but his own weakness for drink and dissatisfaction with his life, he loses his job and when, eventually, he tells his wife, runs off because he can't face the consquences. He gets involved (almost against his will) with another woman, hasn't the courage to go back home and face his wife, and... But why go on? It's a long involved story and we listen, in fascination and with a certain amount of sympathy, for he is an appealing character, a little boy set adrift in an adult world, with nothing but a disarming smile and a weak will. Conor McPherson tells a good tale and his words are superbly brought to life by actor Alan Mooney who achieves the required little-boy-lost look with an easy charm and without that irritating whine that can so often go with it. The Good Thief I found this nuch less enjoyable, in spite of the efforts of actor Brendan Fleming. It's a long, involved story about a Dublin "hard man" and a job that goes wrong and leads to murder and kidnap and prison. We don't really make any connection with the character: there simply isn't enough sympathy built into the writing; the story goes on too long and it is like too many potboiler thriller novels to really grab the attention. I found my attention wandering, and once that starts to happen, the play is lost. Fleming does his best with the material, but the writing just isn't up to McPherson's usual standard. Next page - - - Index |
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