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Fringe 2006 Reviews (14)
True West
By Sam Shepard
Assembly Rooms
***
Edinburgh has become the home of a new phenomenon, comedians setting
themselves up as actors, often to occupy their days prior to late nights
telling jokes in no longer smoky clubs.
One of the most successful cross-over artists is Phil Nicoll, who last
year won the Stage Best Actor Award. Now, with the same director, Maggie
Inchley, he joins three other stand-ups for an extreme comedy from Sam
Shepard.
Nicoll plays a straight-laced film screenwriter Austin, who is house-sitting
while his mother holidays in Alaska. Things go wrong when his kooky
brother Lee - Tom Stade giving a well-judged portrayal - arrives fresh
from three months in the desert.
The ever-threatening Lee, who has something of a messianic look, decides
that his story would make a good film and enlists his brother's writing
skills.
To general surprise, Dave Johns' bigshot producer Saul goes for the
unknown writer's contemporary Western, much to the chagrin of his ditched
brother.
The play concludes with the arrival of something like sanity in the
form of the men's returning mother, played by Laura Brook using an accent
that needs a lot more work.
With its mix of human foible and madness and chalk and cheese brothers,
this is characteristic Shepard. The comedians take on their new roles
pretty well, though whether this trend and its implication that comedians
can act as well as those trained for years has not yet been fully proven.
Philip Fisher
Bodies In Transit
By Nina Larissa Bassett
Mucca Divina
Traverse
***(*)
Despite the pains the programme goes to in explaining how much research
went into Bodies in Transit, in the end there's only so much
one can say about the sex trafficking of women from Eastern Europe to
the west, and this play doesn't exactly cover new ground. At the same
time, Bassett's script is well-crafted and avoids sensationalism.
The staging uses various physical theatre techniques to portray Lola
(Iben Hendel Philipsen) and her emotional struggle/journey. This is
an interesting decision on Philipsen and director Lars Henning's parts,
as at times the transition is so jarring that it forces the viewer to
disassociate from events. Trying to overlook this proves difficult as
Philipsen ricochets through her 'nineteen characters,' since without
her changing her voice or much about her physicality, the only hints
that one character has gone and another arrived are the jolts as she
flings herself from one side of a conversation to the other, or in the
extremely stylized hand gestures she uses to signify each character.
It's clear, but distracting.
At the end, one is left with a strange feeling - not precisely empty,
not precisely full, and not really sure what to make of Lola's sad tale.
The play seems to suggest a problem without offering the audience any
idea of how it can be solved - like Lola, we are left feeling like trapped
witnesses to an atrocious set of circumstances, without any clear way
of getting out.
Rachel Lynn Brody
Alun Cochrane - Introducing
an Introduction to Alun Cochrane's Imagination
Gilded Balloon Teviot
****
Alun Cochrane did an excellent job of hosting Best of the Fest
last year, dealing very well with the aftermath of some loud objections
from a couple of audience members to Richard Herring's unfunny obscenities
and attempts to shock.
His own show this year is based on the premise that he believes himself
to have no imagination and is trying to develop it. In order to do this,
he has created The Unicorn Sketch, which is so imaginative it
will blow our minds.
Cochrane creates a very amiable character on stage, like a friendly
northern bloke who might start chatting to you in a pub. He appears
to be perfectly genuine about everything he says, as though he is telling
you the absolute truth as he sees it. He doesn't ask for much in life
- to him, wearing odd socks is a bit exciting and sexy - but he likes
to be straight and truthful about everything. However he does tend to
get easily diverted and will sometimes start to tell you about one thing
and then go off onto a completely different train of thought. In fact,
if you're unlucky, he might get so diverted with his list of dislikes
that he might completely forget to do The Unicorn Sketch, with
effects that make the helicopter in Miss Saigon look rubbish.
Cochrane's set is slick, polished and very funny, and he has a great
relationship with the audience on stage. He is well worth a look.
David Chadderton
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