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The
Edinburgh Fringe
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Fringe 2004 Reviews (22)The Macbeth Conspiracy This year, there seem to be more Shakespeare reworkings than ever. There are numerous new Hamlets, Bill Shakespeare's Italian Job is back again and theatre babel's superb Macbeth is at the Gateway. The Macbeth Conspiracy introduces a few new ideas. It is set in the 1970's so there are loads of suits and bad haircuts. Ross and Lenox have new roles as the Woodward and Bernstein of the Highlands. Somewhat surprisingly, this idea works pretty well as they interrogate the various participants in an effort to discover who killed the King. There are too many weaknesses for the new conceits to be carried off. As an example, in order to prove that no man of woman born can kill him, Macbeth becomes an Achilles or Superman. The main problem is that the acting is generally not up to it and the speaking can be very unclear. The consequence is that the plotting becomes muddled and requires a knowledge of the play to unravel. The exceptions to the general rule are the talented Anne Schutte as Lady Macbeth, Giles Stoakley as W, possibly short for witches or weird sisters (3). Dominic Haddock's MacDuff, although overwrought, is also of note for the great feeling imparted to the role. Philip Fisher The Blind Fiddler A new play by the author of the internationally-renowned Stones in his Pockets is bound to receive plenty of attention, and so it has been put into one of the larger auditoria on the Fringe. However The Blind Fiddler does not display the humour or originality that made Stones so successful. The story is told mostly in flashbacks by Kathleen - played both as an adult and as a child by Carol Moore - as she tries to understand her parents by going on a pilgrimage that her father (Marty Maguire) went on every year. Her mother (Julia Dearden) believed that to be successful they had to break away from their traditional Catholic roots so as not to offend the middle class Protestants who provided their pub with a great deal of custom. Her efforts helped Kathleen to get a good education and her brother Joe (Paddy Jenkins) to become a world-renowned pianist, but at the expense of breaking up the family. At the very end, the adult Kathleen finds something out about her father's pilgrimage that helps her - and the audience - to understand him much more clearly. There are some very good performances in this production from the whole cast. However there is a lot of doubling of parts which can be confusing, especially when someone with a major part such as Pat (the father) or Mary (the mother) goes off and then comes back on very soon after as a different character without much of a change in appearance or performance. The set works well, dominated by a large backdrop containing doors, compartments and gauze for changing the appearance of the stage. Traditional Irish music is provided throughout the play by onstage musicians. There are some nice moments in the play and some very good performances,
but it is very slow-moving and sometimes seems to take a long time to
travel a short distance. Unlike Stones, there is little about
this play that is original enough to set it apart from many other Irish
plays that have been successful in England over the last few years.
However there is an interesting story in here and it is a very polished
production. David Chadderton The Rap Canterbury Tales The Rap Canterbury Tales is a safe way for white academics to feel as if they've sampled a taste of hip-hop culture. This isn't to say that creator and performer Baba Brinkman isn't well-intentioned in his effort to make Chaucer's stories more accessible to young, modern audiences, but the likelihood of his getting any notice from a hip-hop based audience at C Central seem low. Brinkman's stories are faithful retellings of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. The raps themselves are interesting, and certainly the clearest retelling of Chaucer's work I've ever been exposed to (and yes, that includes the BBC dramas that graced our television screens last fall). What's weak is the way in which Brinkman chooses to link each story; his verse may be engaging but his prose is not; his concept might also work better if we were actually told each story by a new character. There are few distinctions between each of the rappers that Brinkman embodies. Brinkman should definitely be congratulated on knowing a good length for his show - it winds up just in time for audiences to feel like they've slummed it, intellectual style, but also before his stage persona gets a bit too grating. The press release for this show states that in the off-season, Brinkman "performs in high school and university classes, bringing students a new appreciation of one of the great classics of English literature." This is definitely a good show for kids who are struggling to understand Chaucer. Rachel Lynn Brody |
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