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Fringe 2005 Reviews (2)
Terrorist! The Musical
Devised and performed by Bad Penny Theatre
Smirnoff Underbelly (Big Belly)
***
A fun but forgettable hour with seven self-proclaimed wonders of the
terrorist world. Devised by the company, Terrorist lacks a definite
story, opting for meandering observation rather than concrete plot.
The songs are snappy and pleasant to listen to, though lyrical content
is often a little uncomfortable and only one or two members of the company
have noteworthy voices.
Terrorist has novelty value, but once the gimmick sinks in audience
members will realize it lacks substance and shies away from examining
too closely the issues it raises. Its attempts at satire therefore fall
flat, which is unfortunate given that they audience seemed willing and
interested in engaging with something more deliberately provocative.
Rachel Lynn Brody
The Jew of Malta
By Christopher Marlowe, Marco Maria Linzi, and Julio Maria Martino
Teatro Della Contraddizione
Komedia Southside
*(*)
400 years ago, someone killed Christopher Marlowe in a pub brawl. This
August, Fringe audiences have the opportunity to watch Teatro Della
Contraddizione murder The Jew Of Malta in a production that incorporates
movement, dance, and really bad acting.
Without previous familiarity with the text, I find it difficult to
believe that audience members will be able to follow what happens over
the course of this two hour (not, as promised by promotional material,
1 hour 45 minutes) production. Emphasis is placed on masks that signify
various elements of Maltese society, and it seems that no effort is
given to making sure the audience can actually understand Marlowe's
dialogue. The only performer who was remotely sympathetic was the young
woman playing Abigail, but as the cast members are credited without
reference to the parts they played it's impossible to include her name
here.
The production is pretentious in the extreme - an avant-garde performance
art junkie's dream - with the only 'physical nightmare' (as the show
is described on the flyer) being in how long audience members can torture
themselves by staying in their seat. At the performance I attended,
the audience managed to sit for about half an hour before a steady stream
of people began to trickle out of the auditorium.
And how I envied their ability to do so!
Given that the show was this painful to sit through, one might wonder
where the 1½ stars awarded are coming from. That would be the
set, costumes, lighting, and sound, all of which were technically flawless.
Had it not been for the sheer aesthetic value of the set, which is a
raised set of steps and a number of red strips of fabric hung from the
ceiling, I might have clawed my eyes out from sheer boredom before the
play reached its eventual and much-desired conclusion.
Rachel Lynn Brody
Ren-sa
Darren Johnston array
Aurora Nova@St Stephens
****(*)
Choreographer Darren Johnston is one the UK's most innovative and visionary
talents. Graduating from London's world-renowned LABAN Centre in 1999
he has already forged a remarkable career as a performer, choreographer,
video and installation artist and sound designer, carrying off several
prestigious international awards not least from countries with a strong
commitment to experimental dance such as Holland and Belgium. His forte
lies in his capacity to create multimedia works, a seamless blend of
live and pre-recorded material, an exhiliarating interaction between
soundscape and movement with a forceful and lingering visual impact.
Like his 2004 triumph Silicon Sensorium, Ren-Sa is a testament
to the continuous evolution of a diverse and distinct alternative voice
almost unparallelled in the sphere of British experimental dance.
Ren-Sa is steeped in mystery and I don't want to spoil the uniqueness
of the experience by giving too much away. Leaving St Stephen's in blacked-out
minibuses the audience is taken to a secret destination, some sort of
warehouse space, vast and empty, white and dark and chill, where the
audience is directed to a ramp surrounding an installation set aside
from the audience by a ceiling to floor stretch of white gauze. On a
screen a video installation shows a figure in white and a live figure
is vaguely discernable lying prone on a snow-strewn floor. There are
no cultural signifiers in evidence except for the fact that the four
performers are Japanese. This event is a spectator experience, one which
imposes no fixed meanings, but rather elicits resonances which are unique
and individual to each observer. And observers we are obliged to be,
helpless witnesses to actions never more than a few feet away, sometimes
a few inches, but behind the gauze in front of which we are standing,
beyond the boundaries of our control. In a pure white landscape of mounds
of snow, redolent of both a metaphorical and literal desolation, the
performers seem to move within their own physical and emotional imprisonment.
Given the recent 60th commemoration of the Hiroshima atrocity it is
difficult not to make cultural connections when the soundscape reaches
a crescendo of howling winds and flashes of light are so bright they
momentarily blind us. This is no doubt incidental as Ren-Sa was
first performed in 2004. The performers are embroiled in the turmoil
of inner landscapes that might or might not be related to literal events
of the historical past. What is most crucial is that as spectators we
cannot intervene in a bleak, barren and seemingly aimless suffering
that leaves one's chest tight with emotion. Bumping back over the cobbles
on the return journey in the blacked out van I was left with strange
feelings of disorientation and the overwhelming sense of having seen
one of those performances that will remain unforgettable.
Jackie Fletcher
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