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Fringe 2005 Reviews (62)
Sweet Love Adieu
By Ryan J-W Smith
Abandon Theatre
Komedia Southside
****
The Bard meets Goldsmith meets Black Adder meets... Enough!
A tsunami of rhymed dialogue crashes in, bringing a mish mash of comedic
cultural debris. This show is very professional with inspired acting,
excellent direction, delicate set, stunning wardrobe and a text to that
never misses a beat. Shaping it all is an intricate Shakespearean plot
and the notion that Shakespeare is indeed the poet Will, who loves and
leaves and loves and leaves (and finds in this febrile experience the
beginnings of a Romeo and Juliet).
A fine play, beautifully written and well realised in this production,
the cast tremendous, the pace hectic. Perhaps a little too hectic, I
would have appreciated a few moments for a breather every now and then.
Unremitting excellence can tire. At 100 mins I would have cut to 60
and left the audience screaming for more. But a great show which will,
I am sure, deservedly, surface again.
Ray Brown
Something Dark - Lem Sissay
Apples and Snakes
Theatre Workshop
****
An eighty minute one man show by a poet can very easily have me arriving
late and deciding to stay in the bar. Luckily, I went into the Workshop
main house and saw the emotional pyrotechnics of Sissay in full revelatory
flood. This is no self congratulatory/adulatory 'poetic' outpouring.
It's a moving, funny roller coaster of a trip built on and with the
struts and stays of admirable wordcraft. After a bit of a meandering
opening (the whole show could lose fifteen minutes) Sissay gets into
his stride. Filling the empty stage with images and movement, he outlines
his childhood as the adopted son of not too pleasant adoptive parents,
dips into state care, then starts out on the life trip that leads him
to becoming a writer in search of his biological mother and father.
The story and its telling command respect; there's no maudlin self-pity
here, just a desire to share, to illuminate our days with the truth
of one man's life. Director John E McGrath does a great job of moving
Lemn Sissay through the magical time and space of the stage. It's a
show that makes you think, shrink, laugh and love... what more would
you want?
Ray Brown
Saint Oedipus
Wierszalin Theatre, Poland
Theatre Workshop
*****
This was astonishing! Take sado-masochism and every form of incest
you can shake a stick at, set in medieval times (I think), then soak
for a lifetime in heavy, heavy Catholic guilt, remove any traces of
irony or humour, people with Rafal Gasowski and Edyta Lukaszewicz, two
fabulous, athletic, expressive actors.... then splash big music, blood
and bright blue paint around..... the ninety minutes flies by. A simple
set is used to startling effect. Masks (on faces, pate and backs of
heads) combine with dance and extreme athleticism to create grotesque
bodily distortion. The actors voices (in heavily accentuated basic English)
soar and crash, lights flash, weird and wonderful bits of set emerge
from nowhere. We wonder what it's all about, but who cares, this is
the stuff of theatrical genius, dextrously treading a high wire with
tosh on one side and bathos on the other. The risk comes off; unforgettable.
Ray Brown
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