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Fringe 2005 Reviews (12)
Missing Persons
By Colin Teevan
Assembly Rooms
****
Greg Hicks is a classical actor with a tremendous pedigree. His experience
at the RSC must be second to none and now he has brought a one-man show
to Edinburgh. His support team is also top notch, with young director
Sarah Chew supported by top designer Liz Cooke who creates a post apocalyptic
nightmare.
Missing Persons is hardly ordinary Fringe fare either. It is
written by well-respected Irish playwright Colin Teevan and obliquely
takes as its themes Greek Myths.
The hour is split into five monologues. The first, The Bull
is the story of a man who dreams of castrating his father in revenge
for unspoken wrongs that may be connected with the son's dead sister.
Sound designer Jack Arnold does well too here, coming into his own at
a ghastly moment of castration.
The second and longest piece is a powerful drama about an Irish terrorist
known as The Rock and Ajax of Amsterdam. His struggle to come to terms
with the political peace in Northern Ireland is moving and terrifying
in equal measures. The images of his rival's detached head sitting in
a football stadium and those of innocent horses will take some time
to disappear.
Next comes a tiny flowery tale of lost love, followed by a reverse
Medea tale in which a deserted man wreaks horrible revenge on his wife
and her lover.
The tone changes for the delightful last piece, The Roykeaneiad.
This is a comedy delivered by an ageing, patriotic Irishman complete
with Keane's green number 6 shirt. This is an extremely funny tale of
Ireland's world cup efforts in the absence of a mythical hero. The idea
of casting Keane as Achilles and his manager Mick McCarthy as Agamemnon
lightens the tone of the show and leaves the audience happy.
Greg Hicks is a great classical actor who does wonders with the horrors.
He also demonstrates in the final strait that he has comic talent.
Philip Fisher
Heaven Eyes
by David Almond
Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh
****
Best-selling children's author David Almond has adapted his own book
Heaven Eyes for the stage in his second collaboration with young
people's theatre company Pop-Up.
The story deals with the usual problem in children's literature of
how to get the children away from the adults by making the main characters
orphans who decide to escape from the children's home where they live.
They escape across the river on a raft made from old doors and are washed
up on the mud, where they come across another young girlHeaven Eyes
with some strange ideas about life and who lives there with a man she
calls Grampa.
Pop-Up has created a very impressive production, that brings together
some very nice costume and set designs from Elizabeth Whiting and John
Parker, atmospheric music from James Hesford and Alfia Nakipbekova of
Cellorhythmics, film images on the backdrop from Tim Newton and some
very good acting performances. See-Rok Park gives a very physical performance
in the title role, supported well by Robert Boulter, Rory Jennings and
Leandra Lawrence as the orphans and John Joyce as Grampa.
The play has a mysterious, other-worldly feel to it - like Almond's
books. The story does seem to be stretched rather thinly across the
playing time at some moments, but it does confront quite well issues
such as bereavement, orphanhood and parent-child relationships.
Despite mixed feelings about the play itself, this is a high quality
production that deserves much more attention than the rather small audience
that watched the play with me.
David Chadderton
Pricked
By Anita Sullivan
Assembly Rooms
*****
If you want to shed a few tears in Edinburgh this year, try Anita Sullivan's
beautifully judged two-hander, Pricked.
Ros, played by Ruth Mitchell, is an ordinary woman, a 38-year-old financial
adviser who initially seems a fairly dull subject for a play. However,
Ros has a cold that soon gets out of hand.
In no time, she is hospitalised and after ten days in a coma, is diagnosed
as having AIDS. The drama then portrays her experience along several
interweaving timelines. We see how she became the woman that she is,
the support that she receives from her partner Mark and traditional
father and her struggle to recover. Most interesting of all we witness
her reaction to and search for Duncan. The last-named is the married
lover and dodgy insurance salesman who left her infected.
Pricked is a beautiful, well-paced play that builds its dramatic
tension carefully. It features a moving performance from Ruth Mitchell
and a dozen cameos from character actor Derek Frood who effortlessly
moves from part to part with the greatest skill, never better than when
portraying gay nurses and patients.
This is a quiet, angry show that should not be missed.
Philip Fisher
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