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Fringe 2007 Reviews (23)
Night Time
By Selma Dimitrijeviç
Traverse Theatre Company
Traverse 3
**
Selma Dimitrijeviç's slow drama presents three faces of Chris,
a young woman who is suffering. Quite what Kananu Kirimi's character
is suffering from takes time to divine.
Lorne Campbell's production is played out on a teardrop-shaped set
with a single feature, a symbolic white sofa that imperceptibly revolves
through 360 degrees, taking the full 90 minutes duration to do so.
The first scene shows Chris with a neighbour, Frank (John Kazek). She
is a victim of some unnamed assault, possibly by her husband. Frank
is someone whom she has never met but who knows a lot about her, having
spied on her through a bedroom window.
This scene dissolves into a 5 am meeting with Thomas (David Ireland),
a Northern Irishman with a terrible memory. It appears that Chris and
the man whose name she has forgotten have enjoyed a one-night stand
but eventually agree that all that they have done is sleep together,
in the literal sense.
The loose strands are pulled together, possibly in the final half hour
as we meet Chris's husband, Bowman (Benny Young). He is simultaneously
understanding and threatening of a younger wife. She now seems very
confused and fearful of discipline by cutting.
The whole builds to a portrait of a confused young wife who has imagined
at least one and possibly all of these scenes. Kananu Kirimi sympathetically
embodies Chris in a psychological drama that moves too slowly to be
really gripping.
Philip Fisher
Bombers Row
By Paul Allman
78th Street Theatre Lab
Assembly Rooms
***
This hour-long play is billed as a comedy, although that is not apparent
from the subject matter. New York's 78th Street Lab, former Fringe First
winners, have brought to the stage a tale of four murderers, three of
the most notorious of recent years and a gangster who makes them seem
positively nice.
Eric Nightengale's production creates solitary cells with small lighted
frames in which the prisoners stand and converse. The story is framed
by the presence of a new prison barber, Stephanie Dodds' Valerie who
also sings us into and out of the hour. She has a secret that the prison
vetting officer, wittily played by David Calvitto smells but cannot
identify.
The men to whom she ministers are real monsters. Timothy McVeigh, the
fresh-faced Oklahoma City bomber who was also the protagonist in last
year's Fringe hit, Terre Haute, killed 168 people including 19
children.
Greg Steinbrunner makes him seem like a pretty normal guy, as does
Jeff Ricketts' Ramzi Yousef, the Arab assassin behind the first World
Trade Center attack. The play is set in early 2001, before the world
gained a full understanding of what he almost achieved.
Their pal is Unabomber Ted Kaczinski, a maths genius given a quirky
sense of humour by Calvitto. He was eventually turned in to the authorities
by his brother's recognition of his literary style in anonymous letter
to the New York Times.
This trio debate life, execution and murder, dropping unusual facts
into their conversation, for example the eighteen marriage proposals
that McVeigh received before a final engagement with the executioner.
Into this mix comes Alessandro Colla playing Mafia-style gangster,
Luis Felipe, a killer nicknamed King Blood who could have come straight
out of The Godfather. He demonstrates the difference between
a petty crook who enjoys killing people who get in his way and the committed
madman who attempts mass slaughter to promote a cause.
Bombers Row is informative but too much of the discussion feels
contrived. Even so, it is often compelling with a nice twist in the
tail.
Philip Fisher
Killer Joe
By Tracy Letts
Pleasance and the Comedians' Theatre Company
Pleasance Courtyard
****
You will need a strong stomach to enjoy the Maggie Inchmore's production
for The Comedians Theatre Company, led by Phil Nichol. The wall outside
the venue contains enough warnings of different kinds of depravity to
leave little space for anything else.
Like all of the company's work to date, this play hails from the far
side of the Atlantic in the recent past (though their other show this
year is based on Australian movie Breaker Morant). Killer
Joe is an excellent dramatic piece set amongst trailer trash, created
in a grungy style that will be familiar to fans of Sam Shepard, a playwright
celebrated by the Comedians last year.
In this case, the action takes place in a low, claustrophobic, suitably
decrepit trailer set designed by S.Scullion that is so flimsy that it
shakes, while props wittily take on a life of their own. There are also
issues of audibility, especially when combined with Texan accents.
Poverty is a fact of life for the trailer's occupants, the Smiths.
The utterly convincing Nichol's Ansell is a man who favours dirty white
underwear and prefers boozing to working, while his second wife, Lizzie
Roper's slutty Charlotte, has little time for anything but her new beau.
The kids are no better off. Chris, played by Ed Weeks, undoubtedly
a better comedian than straight actor, is a drug pusher with money problems
and, as a consequence, has a dealer keen to rough him up. 20 year old
Dottie, capably portrayed by newcomer Charlotte Jo Hanbury is still
a virgin and a wee bit slow in the head.
The solution to all of their problems seems to be Dallas detective
and part-time serial killer, Tony Law as Killer Joe Cooper. This cool
cop with a great line in Stetsons and a bad nature is hired to kill
off Ansell's ex-wife for a modest insurance pay-out.
When Chris cannot come up with the down payment, Joe has the perfect
solution: a retainer in the shapely form of little Dottie. The family
debate about this arrangement lasts seconds, as one might expect in
this company.
This is where the comedy starts as Joe becomes a willing trailer resident
and the murder for cash goes horribly wrong, thanks to some neat double
crossing. The ending is bloody, Tracy Letts having set out to shock
delivering in spades.
Killer Joe will not be to everyone's taste but it provides ninety
minutes of gripping, often very funny black humour and an insight into
a side of society with which few British theatregoers are familiar.
Philip Fisher
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