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Fringe 2007 Reviews (6)
The Changeling
By Thomas Middleton and William Rowley
Eyeball Theatre Company
C Chambers Street
****
After last year's The Tempest, Eyeball Theatre Company—which
describes itself as "a ragged band of misfits from London, Ireland,
Scotland, Bahrain, France, Portugal and Bognor Regis"—has
applied the same simple visual style to Middleton and Rowley's Jacobean
tragedy.
Although it is simple in that everything is created using nothing but
a wardrobe, some huge white sheets and a handful of props, plus multi-character
acting from the seven-strong cast, the use of these few resources is
very imaginative and effective. The text, although heavily edited from
the original to fit into just over an hour, manages to put across many
of the twists in the multiple plots reasonably clearly and is delivered
extremely well by the performers.
This is a complex story of love, sex, intrigue and murder, where one
character is marrying one man but loves another and gets another man
who loves her to murder for her, but the price he wants in return involves
her in further murder and deception. There is also a side plot in which
involves an asylum doctor who suspects his wife may be unfaithful and
a madman who turns out to be faking his madness.
Emma Greenwell is strong in the central role of Beatrice-Joanna, and,
as her partner in crime Deflores, Aonghus Weber gives a passionate and
intensely-focussed performance. Decima Cardozo is also excellent in
the dual roles of Beatrice-Joanna's waiting woman Diaphanta and wife
of the asylum doctor Isabella. Andrew Fitch creates two very distinctive
characters as the fool Lollio and the lord Tomazo. There are also very
good performances from James French as Alsemero and Pedro, Reef Al Lahiq
as Jasperino, Antonio and Alonso and Dan Hamilton as Vermandero and
Alibius.
Eyeball does impose its physical, visual style on the text, but it
is not gimmicky or distracting, instead putting over a clear story in
a fresh and clear way with some very good, committed performances from
the whole cast.
David Chadderton
Coffee
By James Campbell
C Chambers Street
**(*)
Popular children's comedian James Campbell has written what he has
called his "first grown-up play" for this year's Fringe. It
is set in a coffee shop, where a businesswoman sits getting ready for
her breakfast meeting before being joined at her table by an odd man
who intrigues her by not speaking to her and then irritates her with
his pedantic way of speaking, but it seems she cannot leave.
This is more an extended sketch than a play with a pretty predictable
punchline, although there are quite a few funny lines in the script.
It seems as though the play was considerably shorter than expected,
as it underruns its billed hour running time by quite a bit. There are
a couple of overlong scenes where a long piece of music is played while
very little happens on stage and the whole play is performed at such
a slow pace that it takes much of the impact out of the funny lines.
There are certainly enjoyable moments and funny lines in this production,
but it all runs so slowly that they do not get the laughs they deserve.
David Chadderton
Traces
7 Fingers
Assembly Rooms
*****
As five performers bound urgently onto the stage, backed by lightning
flashes, and perform a mixture of street dancing and acrobatics, the
result is somewhere between an Abercrombie and Fitch advert and a live
performance of The Matrix.
This sets the scene for casually-clad circus troupe 7 Fingers to perform
their breathtaking menu of stunts and choreography, set to a soundtrack
which moves from high-octane rock, through electro, taking in live classical
piano performances along the way.
The props are almost all fashioned from junk (including the grand piano)
and sketches range from an intimate duet between the graceful Heloise
Bourgeois and lithe William Underwood, to choreographed slow-motion
fighting between prodigiously talented brothers Rafael and Francesco
Cruz (without CGI enhancement).
In between catapulting themselves nonchalantly around the stage, they
intersperse playful games (alongside the occasional piece of cringe-worthy
cerebral script), loosely centred around the idea of time. This is used
to best effect in the urgent movement pieces where their impeccable
timing, which sees them leaping over and around one another with milliseconds
to spare, is appropriately backed by the loud pulsing of a clock.
The most commendable and crowd-pleasing feature of the show is the
group’s unflappable reaction to leaps going wrong, and each time
a performer fell or missed a jump, they were back on their feet in an
instant to repeat the move until it was flawless, to the audience’s
delight.
Circus troupes abound this year, but for acrobatics with a kooky human
touch, Traces is a must-see.
Lucy Ribchester
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