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The
Edinburgh Fringe
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Fringe 2001 Reviews (13)Reservoir Dogs (A Tribute) Can a film script work onstage? Stage to film is one thing, but film to stage quite another. And, in particular, can a film like Reservoir Dogs, with its graphic violence, transfer media effectively? Director Ricardo Pinto (who also, incidentally, plays Mr White) has retained almost every word of the film script but rearranged the scenes so that they follow in chronological order. He goes for realism in his direction - live theatre, he says in his progamme note, is as close as you can get to being there - and the violence is undoubtedly very real: messy and very, very bloody. The gun shots are shockingly loud, the smell of gunpowder fills the air, and the muzzle flashes add convincing realism. Why, then, does it not really work? It certainly failed to hold a number of the audience: three left after 25 minutes and another later - and Fringe audiences are not known for walking out of even the most appalling performances, which this wasn't. It's partially because the build-up is so slow - to be honest, it drags. Once the action (the shoot-out) is reached, then the whole theatre, not just the stage, explodes into life. But then it goes flat again, and even the torturing of the cop (his ear is cut off, with much blood flying all over) does little to quicken the interest. The problem is that, in a cinema, fiction and reality are easily blurred, for with modern special effects it is hard to tell what is real and what isn't, whereas in a theatre we are always conscious that we are watching a performance, a story being acted out for us. What we see on a screen could easily be an actual scene captured on camera: what we see on a stage is obviously not real life. Momentarily, when the blood spurts or we are shocked by the sound of a gun, we may be taken in, but in the other scenes we need more than just "realistic" dialogue to hold our attention. It needs to be structured so that we move from mini-climax to mini-climax. There must not only be development of the plot, but also a deepening of understanding, some revelation of character, but that simply didn't happen here. A brave try: good acting, amazing special effects, but a script which simply doesn't work onstage. Crash It's always a pleasing, if unsettling, experience when a playwright leads you in one direction only the turn the tables and leave you gasping, and when (s)he does it more than once, then you have to admire his/her ingenuity. Marshall is a radio DJ of the "shock jock" variety, insulting those listeners brave enough to phone in. But the real life Marshall is very different to the persona he adopts on air, and so when Carol, a nurse on whom he has showered insults when she rang in, arrives on his doorstep, we know that a relationship is going to develop. And so it does - could I have been conned into seeing a Mills and Boon romance? God forbid! But then Vivian arrives, a prostitute with whom Marshall has an on-going relationship, and our expectations are turned upside down. And Levine keeps doing this to us until we realise that all the assumptions we made at the beginning (and, in fact, for much of the play) are completely false. But this isn't a sort of deus ex machina thing, for every new twist has been signalled before but we simply didn't pick up the signals. It's an ingenious play, a three-hander with Levine playing the lead, and it certainly held the attention of this (by now jaded) reviewer who was by now onto show number forty-something. I did feel it was a little long, slightly over-written in places: five minutes or so could be shaved off to its benefit. It is, however, Levine's first play, so we can forgive him some minor faults! It Was Henry Fonda's Fault If there is any show this Fringe which proves just how subjective reviewing is, it's this one. Five stars in 2000 from The Scotsman, four from The List, complimentary comments from the Times, Stage and Independent, and now a lukewarm three from me. The - I hesitate to call it a play, for reasons which will become apparent in a moment - show is an autobiographical piece about how he got interested in film, went to Los Angeles and failed both with the play he took and in his attempts to get into movies. He simply stands and talks to the audience, occasionally changing the expression on his face and his voice to indicate another character. To me it's a stand-up comedy routine rather than a play. The reason I differentiate it from, say, Claire Dowie's stand-up theatre, is that there is no real character (apart from himself) and those other characters that O'Neill does play are comedy creations (funny voice, funny facial expressions) rather than characters in the true theatrical sense. It's gently amusing rather than hilarious: big laughs are rare. O'Neill has an engaging personality, it is true, and watching the show was a pleasant enough way to while away the time, but I want a bit more than this from my theatre. Next page - - - Index |
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