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Fringe 2008 Reviews (85)
Comic Potential
Rattlesnake! Theatre Company
C
**
As you enter the auditorium for Rattlesnake!'s production of Alan Ayckbourn's
famous play Comic Potential android techies build the set carefully
in front of you. What they create is the author's vision of the future
of television: never ending day-time soaps, written by machines and
acted by 'actoids'. JC is one such actoid, only she has developed the
ability to laugh spontaneously. With the jaded American director Chandler
Tate hanging on to his job despite his drinking and two unsentimental
techies the show's ratings are descending rapidly. Into this atmosphere
comes a hopeful young writer who recognises JC's 'comic potential' and
persuades his boss to allow her to star in the comedy that he has written.
Although this production starts well, the actors gabble through their
lines so fast that it is impossible to hear them. When Tate describes
in hushed tones his glorious past when people 'waited in silence for
his every word' much of his description will indeed remain a cloudy
memory because yet again his words were inaudible. Director Alice Cooper
professes to have concentrated on the humanity of the characters yet
this becomes problematic. Her JC is so overly human from the start that
when the actoid does eventually fall in love, her supposedly new-found
experience of extreme human emotion has no impact on us at all. When
Tate directs JC in the play that 'less is more' while acting comedy,
it seems that Cooper should have stuck more closely to her own material.
One can only conclude in the Tate's words, 'such a waste - all that
potential.'
Cecily Boys
Shakespod
Willing Suspension Theatre
C
**
Borrowing her brother Mercutio's iPod young Rosalind plugs in her earphones
only to find the strange phenomena of everyone talking in verse around
her. A chance meeting on the underground with an As You Like It
quoting youth leaves her intrigued, especially when she hears his name
is Orlando. At home she finds herself arguing with her parents over
a man called Paris they want her to meet for their own ends. She runs
away with her brother's help and dresses as a young man only to find
herself bumping into the young Orlando again. However he turns out to
be a police officer and arrests her brother for involvement in a rebel
movement who cause riots in the street and shout for 'Peace, liberty
and freedom from tyranny'. Mercutio curses his sister for 'coming between
them' when she intervenes in his arrest, for he was 'hurt under her
arm'.
Sound a bit familiar? This is 'Shakespeare on Shuffle' with different
scenes and speeches from Shakespeare played out along the way. However
the problem is that the plot is so convoluted in order to incorporate
as many of the Bard's lines as possible it descends into farce. Although
the actress playing Rosalind gives an earnest performance her delivery
of Hamlet's suicide assessing 'To be or not to be' when her brother
has only been arrested is utterly incongruous. Throughout the plot the
characters have to tap Rosalind on the shoulder to tell her to put her
earphones in (for they are about to break into Shakespeare) with such
laboured pointedness that it becomes childish. Making such jokes as
calling Orlando 'cop-ulet' instead of Capulet raise groans from the
audience and when the plot finally resolves itself, Rosalind, having
of course dressed up as a lawyer and saved her brother by reminding
everyone that 'the quality of mercy is not strain'd', she conveniently
gets her brother out of his melodramatic death sentence.
Although the actors perform with energy and commitment to a farcical
plot, one cannot leave without thinking that we had much rather have
seen them simply perform As You Like It than try to shuffle Shakespeare.
Transporting Shakespeare's verse does not mean one can dismiss the plots
and characters in order to make a convincing play.
Cecily Boys
Top Girls
Girls On Top
C cubed
****
In Caryl Churchill's feminist drama an all female cast depict the life
of Marlene, an unforgiving career girl forging her way in the early
Thatcherism soaked optimism of the 80s.
The first half of the play constitutes a dinner party with famous women
from history who have pursued their independence and suffered for it.
Pope Joan was stoned in the streets when her sex was discovered, Isabella
Bird the Scottish explorer never truly finds herself at home, Lady Nijo
the Japanese courtesan has her children taken from her, Patient Griselda
endures her husband's cruel tests of her fidelity and finally Dull Gret,
from a painting by Breughel, marches to hell to oppose the devils that
have tormented and murdered her family.
The second half of the play shows the events leading up to the reasons
for her celebratory dinner party: she has been promoted to managing
director. However this is, of course, at the expense of her personal
life where we find she has sacrificed her relationships with her family
in order to pursue her career.
Girls On Top produce a palpable 80s atmosphere of shoulder pad driven
ambition, with particularly impressive performances from the actresses
playing Marlene and Gret. These are women fighting for their survival
and suffering the loss that they can never repair. Although some of
Churchill's overlapping dialogue in the first scene is rushed at times,
this is a striking show with affecting performances, displaying the
high price that women have paid for success.
Cecil Boys
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