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Fringe 2008 Reviews (56)
Reasonable Doubt
By Suzie Miller
Guy Masterson -TTI in association with Tamarand Rock Surfers AUS
Assembly Rooms.
**
Reasonable Doubt starts with promise, suggesting a modern sequel
to Twelve Angry Men, as a pair of jurors meet, two years after
acquitting a man who probably committed a crime of passion.
The setting is a luxurious hotel penthouse in Sydney, nicely conveyed
by a designer unnamed in the programme.
Peter Phelps' Mitchell fell for another juror, Anna, played by Emma
Jackson, but rather than sleep together, they just talked the night
away. In retrospect, that night cost two further lives and left the
pair miserable.
Now, with much water having passed under the bridge, emotions fluctuate
wildly and unreasonably but it would be unfair to give away any more
about this far-fetched thriller.
Sadly, in striving to entertain, Suzie Miller introduces more and more
revelations so that, eventually, Australian soap star Phelps must have
felt right at home.
Philip Fisher
The Cross and the Switchblade
Saltmine Theatre Company
Charlotte Church
****
Saltmine Theatre have brought their performance of the true story of
David Wilkerson and his eventually successful attempts to bring God
to the vicious street gangs of New York in the mid 80s. In showing one
simple yet genuine preacher's struggle to life they show that even in
the darkest facets of society there is some hope to be found. The truth
of the matter is, this is far more the story of a hurt and damaged young
man, Nicky Cruz, charting his downfall as he rises from a nobody on
the streets to being the leader of the Mau Maus. Michael Taylor portrays
him as much a victim as a villain, with a palpable fear and pain hovering
behind the bravado and lust for violence. The rest of the cast as excellent,
bringing a measure of depth from the largely superficial supporting
roles.
The play does suffer from a slow start and the narrative threads don't
tie together particularly neatly. Wilkinson's marital dilemmas don't
feature enough, or with enough of a concrete resonance to really make
it more than a passing distraction. However the meat of the play is
both stunning and powerful, charting a convincing turnaround of attitudes
from both men.
Graeme Strachan
Titus Andronicus
DDOS
Sweet ECA
***
Having enjoyed Julie Taymor's movie adaptation of Shakespeare's earliest
tragedy, it's not implausible to assume that the physical and artistic
directions shared by it and DDOS' production are a coincidence. Given
that very few people actually saw the 1999 film it is something that
might have gone over an audience's head. Not that it's a bad thing to
have borrowed from a good production, but the quantity of lifted material
does undermine the good work done by the cast and crew.
Noted by many as being the bloodiest of Shakespearian tragedies, the
company have gone out of their way to ensure that this is evident and
plain, with lashings of fake blood tossed around the stage and no single
death occuring cleanly.
The result is a tightly paced abridgement which carries its momentum
along sweeping up the audience in a horrific wave of death, rape, butchery
and madness. Solidly performed by all hands and, if not entirely original,
it is certainly entertaining theatre.
Graeme Strachan
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