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The
Edinburgh Fringe
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Fringe 2004 Reviews (33)Too Loud a Solitude The years of oppression behind the Iron Curtain were the catalyst for much good writing. Czechoslovakia was blessed with any number of good writers spinning out vast amounts of Samizdat work. While Vaclav Havel, Milan Kundera and Ivan Klima might be more famous, Bohumil Hrabal writes wonderfully witty allegories. The most famous of these, Closely Observed Trains, was filmed. Alex Went has adapted Hrabal's novella about a mad man in a madder society into a powerfully moving one-man show, complete with superb set and sound effects. As the programme notes say, Hanta is a descendant of Hasek's Good Soldier Svejk. He is an innocent who has been compacting paper for 35 years but like various colleagues in the underground, is an intellectual who has to watch the rats ruling the country. Hanta is developed into a well-rounded figure by Hrabal, he wraps treasured books in reproductions of Old Masters and toddles along happily enough until at last, a new regime dehumanises what was already a very unsatisfactory society. There are many brilliant touches, possibly down to a good director, Chris Nattrass, or to Went himself. The most poignant of these is when the whole drama of the Holocaust is summed up at the push of a button. Philip Fisher Durang Durang Durang Durang bills itself as six plays by Christopher Durang. In fact, there are two different sequences of six plays and those under review appear on even dates. In reality, these are sketches rather than plays but that doesn't detract from the quality of the best of them. Two last about two minutes between them and are not of any great moment. The first playlet, Natalie Haverstock's Nina in the Morning takes an archly cool look at a rich woman whose vanity is all that keeps her going. With help from an assortment of children and servants, it is possible to see how empty Nina's life is. Canker Sores and Other Distractions sees a divorced couple at a reconciliation dinner that is constantly waylaid by a recognisably intrusive waiter played by Philip Lawrence. The two funniest pieces are 1-900-desperate that wittily looks at women who call chatlines and the men (and boys) that prey on them, and Medea, the latter co-written with Wendy Wasserstein. Medea stars Erica Fee as the woman driven to distraction. The treatment would do credit to the Reduced Shakespeare Company both in the laughs and the groans at corny humour. Durang Durang is more fun than high art and can be inconsistent but at its best is well worth a visit. Philip Fisher These Four Walls Kim Voisey-Youldon is a star in the making. Her performance as Birkenau inmate Lena Mandelbaum is tremendous, combining humour with tragic pathos like a veteran. The script is apparently based on a true story of a blonde haired, blue eyed Polish Jewess, who ended up as a cellist in the Camp's orchestra, following an audition for her life. In around an hour, with the assistance of director Jane Briers, Ciaran McConville allows his actress to tell Lena's backstory and bring things up to the tale of her baby son, Nicholas, to whom the stories are addressed. The drama is helped by Miss Voisey-Youldon's ability to create clearly distinguishable portraits of Lena's parents and fellow residents. Much of the writing is highly believable and the script only occasionally becomes overly sentimental or cliched. There are several truly dramatic moments, especially the one where the words "We hesitated" said so much about an irrevocably missed opportunity for life and freedom. It seems inevitable that we will hear more of Kim Voisey-Youldon. She deseves an award for this heart-rending performance. Philip Fisher |
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