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The
Edinburgh Fringe
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Fringe 2004 Reviews (1)Metaphor Metaphor makes its final stop on a pan-European student theatre marathon at the Gateway Theatre's intimate Pend (venue 7) this week, after a process that has spanned several months. Directed by Ben Fleming, the piece follows the relationship between two characters (played by Maryam Hamidi and Scott Hoatson) from their initial meeting through a tumultuous relationship. With no set and limited props, the performance's emphasis is on the abilities of the actors to communicate the thoughts and emotions of their characters through short verbalizations (which, though they sound like voice clips from computer game The Sims, are actually expressive and exact), and brief interludes of personal contortion, framed by the sharp, poignant, and often humourous relations of one character to the other. Referring to Hamidi's performance as magnetic seems as if it might be a cliché, but throughout the piece her character's struggle is consistently elaborated with such precision that it is almost impossible not to identify and sympathize most with her character. Both actors are remarkably uninhibited about their performances. While the opening of Metaphor is clear, it covers ground often trodden by all forms of romance genres. Boy meets girl, they fall in love, a hook-up ensues. It's after this, when the actors must explore the dimensions of the relationship, that Metaphor begins to lose cohesion - while the final few minutes of the piece wrap the details up nicely, there is a substantial section near the middle of the piece that is difficult to cipher. This makes the play seem longer than its thirty minute running time. Metaphor's other weakness is in the choice of background music. Selections range from The Cure to Joy Division to New Order - not the most diverse musical palate - and one that places the piece very centrally within a gothic/new wave/80s context. The lyrics don't always fit the action taking place between Hamidi and Hoatson's characters, and because their performances during the silent parts of the play are so compelling, the inclusion of music ultimately detracts from the overall emotional appeal of the piece. Because of its beginnings as a piece for an international touring festival, what's perhaps most intriguing about Metaphor is its lack of verbal communication. Any piece which intends to play to multi-lingual audiences must be careful about the way in which it uses the spoken word, and in Metaphor the company has by and large done a serviceable job. Metaphor plays during Week 0 only. Rachel Lynn Brody Txatxorra's Cube Txatxorra's Cube demonstrates the kind of avant-garde performing art material most media students only dream of being focused and inspired enough to make. It's a half-hour show with two performers, Patricia Fuentes and Maria Ibarretxe, incorporating dance, song, spoken word, and video projection. But that only begins to describe the show. At the show's outset, the two performers stand on stage in black evening dresses, looking for all the world like two sides of the same coin. The audience soon discovers this is not a coincidence, one (it's a mark of how well the performers are acquainted with one another that it is impossible to tell them apart, and neither draws the limelight from the other) acts as a golf-style commentator as the other repeatedly abuses, slaps, and hits herself. With the pronouncement that the subject has succeeded in hating herself, both performers begin to leap about the performing area - in what appear to be three-inch heels, no less - brutally flinging themselves against walls, to the floor, and through the air in a portrayal of the self-loathing of women today. A brief video interlude portrays the two performers on a beach with three young men (Jorge Albuerne, Jorge Lastra, and Natxo Montero), engaging in first a gluttonous feast and then a series of ever-disintegrating emotional encounters. The video's true meaning is open to interpretation, but it seemed to point at the fleeting satisfaction to be gained from hedonistic pleasure before the performance continued with Fuentes and Ibarretxe engaging in more violent self-abuse. Potential audiences should make sure not to think Txatxorra's Cube is just another in the seemingly unending line of pain-makes-art multimedia extravaganzas - while the point of this piece is difficult to verbalize, it's definitely there. And it can only be understood by experiencing the bizarre world which Ibarretxe and her performers have created. Rachel Lynn Brody Next page - - - Index |
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