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The
Edinburgh Fringe
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Fringe 2001 Reviews (7)Postcards from Maupassant There has been some controversy this year over the claim that the Fringe has become too commercial and that there is not enough experimental theatre, but, for me, one of the pleasures of the event is that it is possible to go from a very experimental piece to a "well-made play", from text-based to physical theatre, from low comedy to high tragedy. No one could call Two Friends' Postcards from Maupassant experimental or avant-gard, but anyone who dismisses it on those grounds would be depriving themselves of a small-scale theatrical gem. Maupassant's stories are a delight in any case, and Caroline Harding has adapted them well, retaining all the flavour of the originals. The settings are simple and the performances uniformly excellent, as one would expect from a cast of the experience of Harding herself, Candida Gubbins and Dominic Taylor. There are five plays - In the Bedroom, On the Train, In the Spring, At the Deathbed and In the Graveyard - each making different demands on the performers, and each with that characteristic Maupassant gentle but satirical humour. I suppose this is "commercial" theatre - two RSC actresses and an actor well-known for two high profile TV series - but it's good theatre, and that, surely, is all that matters. The Year of the Monkey Claire Dowie writes and performs what she calls "stand-up theatre", analagous to stand-up comedy. She simply stands and talks to the audience. So how does this differ from any one-person show? Apart from the fact that she writes the material, what is the difference between her show and, for instance, Susannah York's performance of The Loves of Shakespeare's Women (see next review)? It's the seamlessness of the performance and the play's total naturalism. She simply stands there, chatting to the audience, and somehow, without your noticing it, she's gone from being Claire Dowie to the character; the unscripted has turned into the scripted and we never noticed! There's no "acting" either, not in the sense of the audience's being aware of watching a "performance". The delivery is natural and conversational. It's also very funny: the subjects are serious but there is a wicked sense of humour underlying everything. Unfortunately audiences sometimes don't get the humour - or else feel embarrassed about laughing because it seems so out of place: I found myself smothering my laughter because I seemed to be the only one who found it funny! In spite of this, the audience tonight went away well satisfied with what they'd seen and heard, for the pieces make a great impact with or without the humour. There are three plays in this particular show: Bonfire Night, Allotments and The Year of the Monkey. All have characters who are perfectly ordinary and yet completely extraordinary, and Dowie makes us believe in them totally. Brilliant! The Loves of Shakespeare's Women How delightfully husky Susannah York's voice has become! That was the first thing that struck me in the opening moments of this show. The second was the easy rapport she established with the audience straightaway. She presents us with a number of Shakespeare's heroines - Juliet, Viola, Isabella, Portia, Rosalind, Cressida, Beatrice, Cleopatra, Lady macbeth, Queen Katherine, Emilia, Mistress Page and Mistress Ford, Queen Margaret and Constance, as well as three sonnets - at moments when they reveal love, whether sexual, for family or for country. Most are preceeded by a comment which may relate to the theme or to her career as an actress. It's a very theatrical performance: there's the introduction to each piece (or pair of pieces); then a brief pause, a moment of stillness, and she becomes the character, voice and bearing changing appropriately. I have to say that the performance I saw was slightly affected by noises-off, loud noises from an adjoining theatre: footsteps, then music, then cheering and applause. It threw her very slightly at one point, during one of the chats with the audience, and certainly distracted us. A noisy show next to a quiet one - bad planning, Mr Burdett-Coutts! Still, not her fault, and it didn't spoil the show - a delightful start to my sixth day at the Fringe. Next page - - - Index |
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