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Fringe 2007 Reviews (54)
Arnold Wesker's The Mistress
By Arnold Wesker
Guy Masterson - TTI and Holden Street Theatres
Assembly@George St.
****
Martha Lott's solo performance as Samantha is formidable.
Samantha is a successful fashion designer whose clientele are the rich
and spoiled. Wedding dresses and married men are her specialty. We meet
her early in the morning in her salon. The air is filled with anticipation,
waiting for that very important telephone call.
She has had a long string of lovers. They are all married men and she
could reflect and mock some of them until she touches on the one and
only whose call she eagerly awaits. Everything about him is perfect:
looks, the care and attention he gives her and, she confesses, they
have great sex. There is an Achilles heel even in such a perfect encounter;
he happens to be her best friend's husband. That may have not bothered
her had it not bothered him, it seems. Her desperate wait for his arranged
call provides her with the opportunity to reflect and search her conscious.
The ticking minutes pull on her heart strings and prick her conscience,
producing a new insight into her own world. She uses her three "friends
"in the salon as her "shrinks". She talks to them and
answers on their behalf. Her confessions to them are safe because they
are three mannequins. The use of the mannequins to unmask Samantha's
web of social and emotional turmoil and deceit is an effective prop.
Add to that the piles of requests from numerous charities and you discover
the more serious Samantha.
Lott's attractive appearance combined with her impressive performance
and the direction of the multi-talented Guy Masterson makes for a sparkling
theatrical experience.
Rivka Jacobson
Ashes
By Ali Muriel
Dancing Shadows Theatre Company
Pleasance Dome
**
The opening is promising. The humour in the performance set against
the gloomy backdrop of scattered torn pages from books and letters is
engaging. That magical effect wanes rapidly.
The play is made up of four stories which touch different periods.
There is an attempt to interweave them on the grounds that 'future is
like the past, and people are people'.
The main theme of the play is that not all things burn. That government
can burn books and people but cannot burn ideas, music and feelings
such as love and devotion.
We hear that 'words do not change the world, stakes and bonfires change
the world'. We all have a choice and 'we are judged by our choices'.
Unfortunately the main theme loses its impact and leaves one rather
frustrated, not only because of the constant zigzaging between these
four layers but also by the countless clichés thrown at the audience.
There are some good lines and the performances are good overall. The
play is too ambitious and the repeated themes are not enhanced by its
present structure.
Rivka Jacobson
Alice in Wonderland
Burklyn Youth Ballet
Zoo Southside
***
Lewis Carroll's beautifully bizarre tale of one girl's curiouser and
curiouser adventures inside the world of her own dreams is given a classical
ballet makeover in this charming adaptation from Burklyn Youth Ballet.
It's a story which lends itself well to dance, charting a series of
colourful, magical episodes in which the eponymous heroine encounters
strange goings on and stranger characters as she slips down the rabbit
hole and into a topsy-turvy forest. Following a dithering late white
rabbit to the Queen's court, a Mad Hatter, a shisha-smoking caterpillar
and a Cheshire cat are amongst the nutty folk she meets along the way.
In the lead role, Kim Shroeder is a gifted and graceful dancer, who
seems able to make her costume float weightlessly as she spins and leaps.
Elegant silliness and clowning are also brought out by Mad Hatter Hayley
Dwight, and White Rabbit Lindsay Parker. Offenbach (of Can-Can fame)'s
music has been collaged together from various operetta interludes, but
fits the piece perfectly, ranging from the slightly sultry caterpillar's
solo to the regal entrance of the Queen of Hearts. Also fitting is Joanne
Whitehill and Robert Royce's simple classical choreography which encapsulates
storytelling mime alongside solo and group passages of dance, and the
overall quality and polish of the young dancers is commendable.
This lovely production is great for children (in fact one front row
munchkin made several thwarted attempts to join in the on stage action),
and whilst it won't make waves in the dance world, it would put all
but the hardest hearted in a good mood for the rest of the day.
Lucy Ribchester
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