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Fringe 2005 Reviews (33)
Playing Burton
By Mark Jenkins
Pleasance Dome
***
Richard Burton was a glittering star that shone and all too soon fizzled
out, drowned by alcohol. In Mark (Rosebud) Jenkins' eyes, he
is cast in a role that he actually played, Dr Faustus.
For those who are not familiar with Marlowe (or Goethe, Gounod etc)
Faust was a man who sold his soul to the devil in return for twenty-odd
years of glory and the most beautiful woman in the world.
Burton had money to burn on diamonds and high living. His Helen of
Troy was Elizabeth Taylor, an even greater star but another stormy personality.
The story starts much earlier as young Richard Jenkins leaves school
in Wales and is taken up by an acting coach, Philip Burton who not only
gave the tyro his career but his name.
The young man soon turned his ambition from mining to the stage and
as a result of wartime chaos found himself educated at Oxford. In no
time, he was working on the London stage and Darryl F. Zanuck had signed
him up to become the next Hollywood heartthrob.
The success continued although life became fraught as the 37-year-old
married father of two embarked on a highly publicised affair with Miss
Taylor his (also married) future wife times three.
Mark Jenkins manages to give some idea of the man behind the legend.
The play is at its best when Brian Mallon, who really looks the part,
if on a small scale, declaims in character from Shakespeare (Burton
was an unforgettable Hamlet on Broadway) or Marlowe. He then really
moves into overdrive as the drinking takes over.
This is a sad tale of a man who escaped from a life that would have
been hard, to the glamour that he coveted. The Mephistophelian cost
was great but in retrospect, this particular Faust would probably have
changed little.
Playing Burton was a late replacement that is not in the Fringe
Programme. It plays at 7.10 each evening at the Pleasance Dome.
Philip Fisher
Carmen Angel
By Joey Tremblay
Hill Street Theatre
****
Catalyst Theatre from Edmonton, Alberta, are very special. They mix
a very dark fairytale style with sound and lighting effects that leave
their productions a cut above the average.
It is hard to believe that Carmen Angel is a solo play as so
much goes on and so many characters are created in an hour and a quarter.
Actor Chris Craddock is aided by a microphone that distorts his voice,
thus creating very distinctive men and women, old and young. There is
also an impressive soundscape from Wade Staples and a colourfully-lit
set implying entrapment, designed by Bretta Gerecke.
The plot may well all be dreamt and takes two primary stories. In the
first, abused 9-year-old Joey is despatched from his home to an aunt
in the country. There he meets the angelic titular heroine, a girl whose
beauty is only surpassed by her intelligence.
In the second, twenty years on, he is a police photographer witnessing
the nightmarish scene of a murder.
The link between the two is not always clear but primarily, an impossibly
beautiful girl and a creepy undertaker take centre stage in each.
The beauty of Carmen Angel is in both the search for impossible
love as a way of forgetting torment and in the production values that
are of the highest quality thanks to the efforts of director, Jonathan
Christenson.
Philip Fisher
The Drowner
Lost Dog
Komedia Roman Eagle Lodge
****
A young man is out running when he discovers an unconscious woman on
the beach. He brings her home and puts her in the bath. He is facing
mortality; "It's good to stay fit. It's important."; and seems
to see in her a connection to life and death.
The dialogue between these two characters provides the details but
it is in the dance of these performers which reveals the most about
his relationship to her and life and death. There is a wonderful section
where we see snapshots balancing his view of life and death; the breath
of life juxtaposed to a kiss.
We do not need to know that the drowner was inspired by the Seal People
Myths of the Orkney Islands. The dialogue is interesting but truly unnecessary
once the dance begins. Ben Duke and Raquel Meseguer are mesmerizing
to watch. The tense choreography, "devised by the company"
and Rehearsal Director, Pippa Buckingham, is superbly executed. The
added treat is guitarist Jim de Zoete sitting off to the side who weaves
music in and out of the story. The lighting designed by Sally Ferguson
and executed by Mel Doran rounds out this wonderful production.
Catherine Lamm
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