|
Links
Articles
News
Reviews
Amateur
Theatre
Contact
Other
Resources
|
Fringe 2008 Reviews (19)
Krapp's Last Tape & A
Piece of Monologue
Drumlin Players, Ireland
Spotlites @ The Merchants' Hall
****
A good quality production of two of Beckett's short plays. Krapp's
Last Tape and A Piece of Monologue. Written 21 years apart
both see a central male figure looking back on his life with a somewhat
disembodied voice - this is the tape recorder in the first instance
and the use of the pronoun 'he' in the second. While Krapp begins to
reconcile himself with his youthful enthusiasm the speaker in Monologue
displays an unremitting awareness of the quality of death. Krapp's lair
inhabits the left side of the stage and on the right Monologue
comes up in the light and finally fades in the lamp light.
The Drumlin Players achieve Beckett's bleak plays, and even bleaker
humour, with finesse. A well balanced and sensitive production of Beckett's
both contrasting and complimentary Theatre of the Absurd.
Cecily Boys
How's Your Father?
Grimmace
Rocket @ Roxburghe Hotel
**
Two men, dressed the same, same height, with the same haircuts and
same handlebar moustaches, explore a 'testosterone-flavoured tour of
the male experience'. This includes being born, picking their noses,
defecating, worrying about the size of their genitals, getting ready
for a night out, starting a fight in a bar, dancing with a girl and
then going after another, being beaten, wanking, playing soldier, being
an inadequate emotional comfort at a funeral, playing with a ball, scratching
their genitals and acting like un-evolved apes during the scene changes.
Does it get more original than this? No. However Grimmace do have the
best high-energy sound-track to their show so far and the two performers
commit to and execute their uninspiring subject matter with a great
deal of polish. Possibly this is a show more designed to engage a male
audience but the gentleman I talked to outside was unimpressed. If you
want real insight into the male psyche then go and see Stefan Golaszewski
at the Pleasance Courtyard. But if you need someone to DJ your dance
party, then Grimmace are the boys for you.
Cecily Boys
Cleansed
UWE Drama Department
The Space @ The Thistle Hotel
***
Sarah Kane is undoubtedly an acquired taste. However if you like your
drug overdoses, incest, breast mutilation, anal torture, furtive sex,
penis transplants, tongues being cut out, hands and feet being cut off
- all alongside a good bit of desperate craving for the one you love
but can't have, then the UWE Drama Department serve it up nicely. All
they lack is a decent dollop of stage blood and this 'In Yer Face' theatre
fest would have been complete. Plus, in a slight change to the vast
majority of other shows this year, instead of just stripping down to
their underwear, UWE go all the way with full nudity.
Using four interweaving stories between characters in a concentration
camp designed to rid society of its undesirables Kane explores how far
the individuals will go for love. Although UWE's staging is unoriginal,
they make a good job of the suffering. As Grace says at the end, 'when
I don't feel, it's pointless' - you will certainly be left feeling something
after this show, be it numbed by all the horror or fascinated by Kane's
motivations. Fans of Sarah Kane will enjoy this mutilation banquet like
the hell it is.
Cecily Boys
Next
page - - - Index
|
