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Fringe 2007 Reviews (37)
Dylan Thomas in London
By Gwynne Edwards
Fluellen Theatre Company in association with the Dylan Thomas Centre
Venue 13
****
This is the kind of production that makes the Fringe a delight. Venue
13 is small and off the beaten track so that it doesn't raise high expectations
for its audiences, which manage to feel reasonably-sized provided that
they get into double figures.
However, Dylan Thomas in London, which is a kind of prequel
to the same playwright's Dylan Thomas in America a couple of
years back, is theatre of the highest quality.
It helps that the life and works of Dylan Thomas lend themselves to
dramatic representation. Gwynne Edwards has lovingly compiled a biographical
play for three actors that illuminates the wild life of a flawed genius.
Director Peter Richards is lucky to have a strong lead in Rhodri Miles,
who looks the part even down to the toper's red nose; and a couple of
useful character actors to play a dozen or so parts each, some of well
known literary figures of the day.
Jack Llewellyn plays a series of men, mainly Welsh and all long-suffering.
The women played by Eloise Howe, who makes a particularly amusing Edith
Sitwell complete with strangulated voice, fare a little better. At least
most of them fall head over heels in love with the intoxicatingly drunken
poet and seem unfazed by the need to share him with others.
The exception is his Irish wife, Caitlin, for whom the philandering
unsurprisingly gets too much, so that by the time of Thomas' death in
New York, she was literally in a straight jacket.
Travel down the Royal Mile towards the new parliament building and
Holyrood to Venue 13. You will be richly rewarded by these delightful
65 minutes.
Philip Fisher
Aaron Berg presents Macbeth
The Stanford Shakespeare Society
Royal Scots Club, 30 Abercromby Place
***
It is a pretty audacious move to bring a student production of Macbeth
- complete with American accents - to Edinburgh. But the energy and
enthusiasm of the Stanford Shakespeare Society make for a pacy performance
from this six-strong cast.
The cast play multiple roles, sometimes swapping the doubling, which
adds an interesting additional layer of interpretation to the themes
of borrowed robes and the deception of appearance. There are a couple
of odd decisions - several of the male characters are played by women
but are given no new context or character. They appear to be playing
the characters as males, for which, given the modern costume and acting
style, there seems no good explanation. And on occasion the doubling
is unnecessarily overdone - Macbeth playing the various characters given
admittance by the Porter immediately after the dramatic death scene,
for example, unnecessarily detracts from the dramatic tension.
The cast is not uniformly strong, which seems in part to be due to
a lack of attention to deciding how the smaller roles fit into the production's
concept of the play. Zach Chotzen-Freud gives a creditably intense Macbeth
and Sean Kendall comes magnificently into his own in Macduff's final
scenes. It is Adrianna Kesala's Lady Macbeth which gives the production
its backbone, however. Kesala is not so much a desperate as a ruthless
housewife on a mission to advance her husband's, and her own, position.
Superior to her husband in intelligence, strength and wit (yes, this
Lady M actually has a sense of humour), she seems to stage-manage the
entire performance.
This may not be the only Macbeth in town, but Stanford Shakespeare
Society have pulled off an interesting, intelligent and highly original
production.
Worth a watch.
Louise Hill
Political Animal
By Andy Zaltzman
Political Animal
Underbelly
****
Zaltzman is an impeccable host in this late-night showcase-format political
sketch show. Playing to a crowd that fancies themselves politically
engaged (though their opinions seemed to run toward 'Bush Sucks!'),
Zaltzman chatted pleasantly for the opening of the show, ruminating
on topics with political significance as suggested by audience members.
Each of his guests did a short set illuminating their views on political
issues; on the night I attended these ran toward exploring the many
forms of racism. Whether it's typical for his guests to follow similar
threads as one another, or if this was just a happy coincidence, it
worked well and exposed the audience to a couple of very, very funny
people who they might not otherwise have been aware of.
The show hit a bit of a snag around midnight when the final guest was
running late (literally, as we found out when Mr Reginald D Hunter finally
arrived), but Zaltzman soldiered on with the crowd, filling time till
his guest arrived.
While 11pm on a Friday night may not be everyone's idea of the perfect
time for political debate, the non-confrontational nature of the host
and guests' engagement with ideas that clearly mean a lot to them make
for a good evening out . The crowd skewed toward 20-somethings, which
is probably the ideal age range for this kind of humour.
One show I'd tip to see after watching the comedienne perform the first
guest slot is Carry On Shappi, with Shappi Khorsandi, whose sly
observations on race and class in England were both endearing and cutting.
Rachel Lynn Brody
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