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Fringe 2006 Reviews (30)
And Even My Goldfish
Chotto Ookii
C Central
****
If you like weird, then this is for you. A very tall, very strange
young man sits alone in his room, making telephone calls to strangers,
obsessively wiping the phone clean and carefully putting the wipe away
in a plastic bag, scared of opening the door (he keeps the doorknob
in his pocket), listing to the sound of surf as he opens and closes
his hand to change the volume. He has a twisted, hideous cleaner/landlady/mother/imaginary
figure who obsessively cleans and does some vary scary things with her
vacuum cleaner. Two figures in white (male and female) appear and disappear,
apparently occupying the same space.
It's an amusing but very disturbing voyage through a very strange mind,
making for a fascinating seventy minutes.
Peter Lathan
Virgins
By John Retallack
Company of Angels
Assembly Rooms
****
There is a whole complex of themes running through this apparently
simple domestic drama. In a family with two children, a boy of seventeen
and a girl of fifteen, the kids are just discovering sex. The girl takes
a romantic but sensible attitude; the boy plays the field. The mother
goes out to work, the father stays at home and looks after the children
and the house.
The play touches on the respective roles of fathers and mothers, drink
and drugs, adolescent sex, sexually transmitted infections, the relationship
between the generations, growing up, relations between the generations,
friendship - a whole pot pouri of 21st century (indeed eternal)
problems, but it does so without any attempt to preach or even provide
solutions apart from the need for trust. The complexities of familial
relationships are well drawn, as are the characters. What at first appear
to be almost stereotypes gradually deepen and whole minefields are revealed.
Like many other shows this Fringe, there is an element of multi-genre
work here. At points between the scenes there are short dances which
further reveal and deepen the characters' feelings and relationships,
adding an extra level to the already complex piece.
Peter Lathan
Mary and the Stripper
By Michelle van Rensburg
M&E Productions
Hill Street
**
Mary and the Stripper parallels the stories of Mary Magdalen
and Stormie, a modern-day lap-dancer. Both find salvation, in both the
religious sense and in escaping from a destructive lifestyle.
This would appear (from the fact that there are more characters mentioned
in the programme than actually appear onstage) to be a cut-down version
of the play, but unfortunately that cutting down does not work. Whilst
the conversion of Mary Magdalen is believable as she meets Jesus, in
the case of Stormie we see her in one scene being persuaded to go to
church and in the next she has suddenly embraced Christianity and is
leaving her former life behind. The entire dramatic crux of the play
happens off-stage and we are left at the end feeling not only dissatisfied
but cheated.
Peter Lathan
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