|
Fringe 2005 Reviews (4)
Being Earnest: It's Rather
Important
An adaptation by the company from Oscar Wilde
Shore Youth Theatre Company
C Central
**(*)
When they're performing scenes from Wilde's play, the Shore Youth Theatre
Company are bang-on. Cast members show terrific timing and an excellent
sense of dry, intellectual wit.
But the pleasure given by the handful of scenes from The Importance
of Being Earnest is undercut by the loose framework the company
uses to link the scenes together; the actors are revealed to be players
in a (semi?) professional production, and it is here that the fine performances
break down and turn into stereotyped clichés.
It's amusing, at first, to hear the R.P. convert to what one assumes
are the actors' natural accents, but none of the characters really have
anywhere to grow from their initial moments, nor do they. The big 'twist'
of the play, which is that the thirteen year old girl playing Lady Bracknell
is actually a 31 year old man (being played by a teenager) is so obvious
that we suspend our disbelief, only to have the suspension thrown back
in our faces.
The production has a definite absurdist bent and is not too taxing
on one's attention span, so it's probably a good way to ease oneself
into a day of theatre-going.
Rachel Lynn Brody
Switch Triptych
By Adriano Shaplin
The Riot Group
Assembly Rooms
****
Switch Triptych must be one of the hottest tips for a Fringe
First this year. Adriano Shaplin's last play for The Riot Group, Pugilist
Specialist, was a winner in every sense and his new play shares
the verbal dexterity, rhythms and quirkiness of its predecessor.
The play is set in New York in 1919. This is a time of change following
a war. In the telephone exchange where the action takes place, a more
radical change is coming in the form of the Strogen, an automated switchboard
that will make the triptych of operators (looking much more creations
of Francis Bacon than the renaissance) redundant in their own mini industrial
revolution.
The exploration of their reactions encompasses a picture of New York,
an investigation of the battle between the sexes in a patriarchal society
where the men are weak, individuality versus unionisation and in a mysterious
way, a look at religion.
Stephanie Viola is outstanding, delivering sharply witty lines as Catholic
Italian American Lucille. This woman is bitter and may be lesbian but
has a firm belief in her religion. She is contrasted with new girl,
Cassandra Friend's June. The latter is an English agent provocateur
who believes that the only way to fight the threat of unemployment is
through unionised organisation of the workers. Their colleague Pippa,
played by Sarah Sanford takes the easier way out through alcoholic oblivion.
In the end, while they may beat the men who supervise them (Paul Schnabel
and Drew Friedman) they can never defeat the rush of automation that
will change their lives and their century.
The pleasure is greatly enhanced by the language, which often sparkles
poetically and tight direction from the playwright.
Londoners who are tempted should book early for the play's transfer
to Soho next month. This enigmatic play deserves to be a sell-out success.
Philip Fisher
Dublin by Lamplight
By Michael West
Traverse 1
****
Michael West tells us through the mouth of one of his characters that
"Plays contain coded messages". Dublin by Lamplight
certainly does.
This concoction is ostensibly a melodrama about life, love, death and
terrorism, set in Dublin at the turn of the last century. In reality,
it has a dozen subtexts, the most important of which are a new Bloomsday,
the opening of the Abbey Theatre and Irish Republicanism.
Set in 1904, Eva and Willie (Karen Egan and Louis Lovett) bear more
than a passing resemblance to Lady Augusta Gregory and W.B.Yeats as
they begin to set up their idealistic "Irish National Theatre of
Ireland", in reality the Abbey. Their lead actor, well played by
Mark O'Halloran, is an acting Oscar Wilde, complete with delightfully
camp mannerisms.
The group are desperately trying to set up their National Theatre while
another kind of nationalism, supported by bombs, is creating chaos in
Dublin. Soon Eva finds herself imprisoned as she preaches about freedom
and her part as Emer in Cuchulain taken by pregnant costumier,
Maggie (Janet Moran).
Dublin by Lamplight is an enjoyable Joycean romp, which will
appeal most to those who know their theatre and Irish history. It looks
at a time that sowed the seeds that grew into Ireland's greatest theatre
and a war that may finally be ending one hundred years later.
The set features a bare wall with colour added by the white-faced actors,
while Annie Ryan's direction maintains pace throughout its two-hour
duration.
Philip Fisher
Next
page - - - Index
|
