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Fringe 2005 Reviews (18)
The Exonerated
By Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen
Queen's Hall
*****
It is not every play that ends with a standing ovation and several
cast members and most of the audience wiping away tears. The Exonerated
is such a powerful example of Verbatim Theatre that these reactions
to its terrifying truths are inevitable.
The 10-strong American cast has travelled to the Queen's Hall and they
hope that it will be a stepping stone towards the West End. This show
deserves to be seen as widely as possible and it is to be hoped that
a London producer takes it on. If the two-year Off-Broadway run (reviewed
twice by BTG) is anything to go by, there is money to be made, but that
is hardly the point.
The Exonerated tells the stories of six people who spent many
hard years of their lives on Death Row awaiting execution for crimes
that they did not commit. In 1½ hours, they run through their
past lives, the crimes, the sentencing, the prison years and joyfully
their release and subsequent attempts to adapt.
The stories are horrific. They offer damning indictments of the prejudices
that are rife in society and of a system of justice that will convict
the downtrodden, black or white, to close a case.
The scariest thing is the fact that somebody else confessing to the
crime does not lead to their conviction or the release of the innocent.
This comes through again and again.
The formula has three central parts played by celebrities for a few
weeks at a time. Aidan Quinn is reputed to be appearing later in the
Edinburgh run. For this performance Robert Carradine plays Kerry Max
Cook, a man who is raped and mutilated in prison and loses a brother,
cruelly murdered by a man imprisoned for a mere three years.
Writer Erik Jensen is Gary Gauger, who is accused of killing both of
his parents on practically no evidence. Most movingly, the tiny, bird-like
Sunny Jacobs plays herself and relates her story of innocent hippydom
becoming a horror show. It reaches its climax as she tearfully talks
about the botched execution of her common-law husband Jesse, who suvived
three doses of electricity and died horribly after 13½ minutes.
This is Verbatim Theatre (every word comes from interviews with the
real people) at its very best and should be on everybody's list of must-see
plays, especially advocates of the return of the Death Penalty.
The Exonerated is an unforgettable experience. Do not miss it.
Philip Fisher
Ubu
By Alfred Jary, translated and adapted by Martin Danziger and the company
Theatre Modo
Baby Belly
*****
It's Macbeth, Jim, but not as we know it.
Theatre Modo's version of Ubu is not for the Shakespeare purist,
the faint-hearted, the prudish or the politically correct. If the scatalogical
upsets or you find vicious satire offensive or you have no interest
in throwing tomatoes at the actors, it would be just as well to keep
away from the Baby Belly from 2.25 to 3.40 each day. And avert your
eyes from the piles of brown - surely it can't be? - stuck with flyers
on either side of Niddry Street.
Pa Ubu has come to Scotch-land and he's going to take over. First he
has to get rid of the king (Jack McConnell), but he also has Blair and
Brown in his sights, and in a torrent of mayhem rises to the top and
indulges in a life of debauchery and excess before being brought down
in his turn. On the way virtue is destroyed, vice is triumphant and
every sacred cow is butchered. It's a scatter-gun approach: this is
no needle-sharp satire but rather everything is attacked, blasted, torn
to shreds, and human society is revealed as built upon greed, gluttony,
lust, corruption of every kind.
We are left with a feeling of sheer joy at this indiscriminate railing.
Oh, the bliss of seeing political correctness thrown aside! of seeing
moralising politicians portrayed as filthy, greedy, lustful, self-centred
clowns!
The audience responds, at first with shock but then with steadily increasing
glee, to Theatre Modo's incredibly energetic performance. If you're
easily shocked, stay well away, but if you enjoy seeing pomposity not
pricked but blown apart, if you have sat feeling frustrated and angry
as politicians have twisted and squirmed to justify the unjustifiable,
then Ubu is for you.
Peter Lathan
Milk
Festival Highlights - Pez en Raya
Pleasance Courtyard
***
The company Pez en Raya is highly regarded in Spain and certainly a
good part of the audience laughed a lot - and it's directed by the very
highly respected David Sant (Peepolykus, The Wicker Woman, The
Elephant Woman) - but I'm afraid this two-hander about what happens
when a cow's milk turns black left me... well, cool rather than cold.
I was reminded of the words of Miss Jean Brodie: "For those who
like this sort of thing, this is the sort of thing they like."
There's a lot of clowning, an amateur exorcist - and a faintly absurdist
air about the whole thing. It is, I think, one of those shows which
polarises audiences: if you like this kind of comedy, you'll love it,
but if you don't, you come away faintly bemused, wondering what the
fuss is all about. I fit into the latter category but many audience
members quite obviously didn't.
That's what the three stars category is all about - a good show of
its type - and Milk seems to fit perfectly.
Peter Lathan
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