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Fringe 2007 Reviews (32)
The Bitches Ball
Devised and written by the company
Penny Dreadful Productions and Scamp Theatre
Assembly @ Hill Street
****
An old-looking woman, dressed in the rags of the poor of the 18th century,
sits asleep, legs splayed out in front of her, two walking sticks on
either side of the chair. Rain starts. She stirs and, with some difficulty,
uses her sticks to drag what looks like a very small tin bath towards
her, then under her skirts. She urinates, long and loud, a look of huge
relief on her face.
This is Mary Robinson, poet, novelist, actress and mistress of the
young Prince of Wales (later George IV), in her forties and close to
death.
It's a slightly uncomfortable but funny start to a play which tells
Mary Robinson's story from her childhood on and focuses, inevitably,
on her affaire with Prince George. The style is comic and exaggerated,
with the rest of the cast of five playing more than a dozen roles between
them, including Mary's mother, the kids at her school, high society
women, the Princes' equerry, and many more. The playing of the roles
has no regard to sex and changes of costume (the basic costume being
female underwear of the period) are minimal, but the cast - Sophie Russell,
Ian Street, Bernadette Russell and Sarah Ratheram - paint them in such
broad strokes that there is no difficulty in distinguishing one from
the other. In fact, the only character who approaches naturalism is
May herself, played by Mira Dovreni.
It's a splendid romp, full of great visual and other gags, but anchored
in reality by the character of Mary herself. Its fault - and what, for
me, prevents it reaching five star status - is the ending, which is
(and I can think of no better word than this) somewhat amorphous, although
the final image we are left with - a live reproduction of the Joshua
Reynolds portrait of Robinson on which the lights slowly fade - is effective
and memorable.
Peter Lathan
Stratospheric
Dance Base
***
Stratospheric features three short and intriguing dance pieces,
all conceived by countries in the Northern Hemisphere (though whether
this has a linking effect on the nature of their work is unclear). All
three pieces, dDumY by Stammer, Vermiculus from Eeva Muilu,
and Club Fisk's Forestillinger share the common motif of the
body and its boundaries, and provide a thought-provoking and often humorous
exploration.
dDumY, choreographed by Colette Sadler and performed by Nefeli
Skarmea, charts a slow but playful exploration of the surfaces of the
body, using a leather chair. In total silence, save for the recurrent
soft hum of the lighting electrics, and the occasional creak of leather,
Skarmea takes to a platform of well worn church-hall style tables and
begins an almost imperceptibly measured sequence of movements taking
the chair over and around her body. Innocence rather than elegance governs
her flexed-footed movement and often gives the result of a mollusc weaving
in and out of its shell, on time-lapse.
In Vermiculus, we are initially greeted by a radio poking onto
the stage on the end of a long metal pole, which gives the sorry announcement
that the performer will not be joining us, listing as its reason the
various symptoms of depression. Instead, we are told, hyper-confident
'Amanda' will provide a replacement piece, and similarly, her symptoms
of ecstatic mania are listed in turn. This witty and often startling
piece showcases the result of super-assuredness pushed to its psychotic
boundaries, as the leaping, gallivanting and cavorting Amanda appears
to be malfunctioning on seratonin. Half-way through, after a terrifyingly
frantic monologue boasting of Amanda's achievements and plans, we are
re-introduced to the 'original performer', whose introspection creates
a series of contrasting quiet and solitary tableaux.
Finishing the bill on a lighter but no less provocative note, Club
Fisk present physical comedy with an inquisitive edge, when they introduce
the piece they are about to perform with whiteboard, felt tips and football
formation precision, before launching into the routine three times,
with deadpan pleasantries and increasingly stranger costumes. First
up standard casual wear allows them freedom of movement for the wacky
and jerky series of moves which sees their bodies take over the decision
making as to where they will go, each limb carrying its own conflicting
intention against the others. Stepping into fetish wear, the short sequence
is repeated, before ending in padded panda and rabbit suits. At each
change, the restriction in movement their clothing provides produces
a different result.
This entertaining mix of pieces is a colourful illustration of physical
imagination, and is well worth a visit.
Lucy Ribchester
Grasmere
By Kristina Leach
RoaN Productions
C Chambers Street
****
If their Edinburgh debut is anything to go by, there are great things
to come from Kristina Leach and RoaN Productions. A piece about the
lives of Dorothy and William Wordsworth may not seem the obvious choice
for a young American company casting around for their European premiere
(and I confess I was sceptical), but this is a mature, assured production
of a beautifully written play on love and loss, a moving, truthful piece
which is biography and so much more.
Matthew Waterson, bearing an almost uncanny resemblance to the young
Wordsworth, plays the poet with humour and just the right balance of
honesty and hubris. Rachel McKinney's Dorothy is every inch the repressed,
self-denying, intensely intelligent sister. Brent T Barnes' Samuel Taylor
Coleridge is simultaneously the light-hearted confidant of both and
the tortured poet who wears his genius lightly. Maria Pallas' US accent
is by far the most marked, but (and I would never have thought I would
say this about so very English a role) she is so utterly the charming,
guileless Mary, the perfect contrast with McKinney's Dorothy, that this
is soon forgotten.
Leach's writing has the effect of effortlessness, yet manages deftly
to combine naturalistic dialogue with more stylised sections in which
her characters' inner lives are revealed. The most moving of these shows
William and Dorothy playing a game in which they imagine themselves
lying in their coffins, Dorothy asking him to promise not to leave her
behind when he dies. Even without the knowledge that William pre-deceased
her by nine years, this brings a lump to the throat. The cast manage
the changes in emotional pitch between this and comic passages such
as the saga of Coleridge's albatross conundrum with admirable ease.
If anything, and this is counsel of perfection, I would have liked
to see yet more of the darkness of Coleridge's suffering to bring out
the parallels between his and Dorothy's predicaments, but the lightness
of Leach's touch and the simultaneous depth of her revelation of her
characters' suffering is remarkable. The direction works, for the most
part, seamlessly with the writing (although I am not sure that even
the Wordsworths drank quite so much tea!).
This production isn't perfect, but it is by far the most compelling,
moving 75 minutes of straight theatre I have seen at the Fringe so far
this year.
Louise Hill
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