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Fringe 2009 Reviews (11)
Chatroom
By Edna Walsh
Exeter University Theatre Company
The Zoo
****
Six teenagers meet in a Chatroom and call themselves 'Chiswick's Bloody
Opinionated'. Jack is doubting Harry Potter, Eva is bored and William
is looking for a cause. When vulnerable Jim comes into their lives through
the magic of the annoymous internet, William and Eva begin to play a
dangerous game of provocation. Jim feels he has little to live for and
has already spent time in a suicide chatroom with dedicated but distanced
Laura. As the words mount up the teenagers' world becomes more than
just innocent chat. Well staged, Walsh's superb writing is confidently
presented by this young student company. Where something of the powerful
reality of the piece is lost in the overplayed mock analysis and the
erring on stereotypical characters, this is still a commendable production
and well worth attending.
Sacha Voit
Zemblanity
Le Navet Bete
Bedlam Theatre
***
In a surreal logic of absurdity and chaos, Hans is a on a journey.
In his black suit of a jacket, bowler hat and black tights (with some
of the best incidental comedy legs on the Bedlam stage this year) this
fussy, funny little German falls in love with a woman of little mobility,
but still manages to lose her. As he searches the unknown lands of this
confusing dreamscape, four incalculable characters plague his quest.
Having most probably just broken out of a mad Bavarian circus, this
quartet of clowns roll and flip across the stage with raving eyes and
gurning tongues. Establishing a great rapport with the audience, this
incomprehensible show will both entertain and confound. Creating a great
deal of fun, and led by a winning performance by the actor playing Hans,
this is an utterly pointless but still enjoyable production.
Sacha Voit
Orphans
By Dennis Kelly
Traverse 1
**
Dennis Kelly has a unique theatrical style and voice, which can sometimes
be frustrating and begs imitation, but is effective.
Orphans is set in the home of Danny and Helen, an ordinary enough couple
with a 7-year-old, Shane, and another on the way. Their celebratory
dinner is interrupted by the arrival of Helen's brother Liam in a blood-drenched
tee-shirt.
Helen, played by Claire-Louise Cordwell with an accent that is pure
EastEnders, seems overly-protective of the brother with whom she grew
up in care after the deaths of their parents in a fire.
Joe Armstrong's Liam claims that he found a young man lying in the
street suffering from multiple knife wounds but his story contains occasional
inconsistencies.
Jonathan McGuinness as his brother in law suggests calling the police
but this meets with considerable resistance from Helen, rather limply
supported by Liam who seems a little slow, if not actually suffering
from a mental problem.
Dennis Kelly, with considerable assistance from his director Roxana
Silbert and a well-drilled cast, uses naturalistic broken speech that
hits such a level that at times, one fears that no sentence will ever
end.
He also places carefully-timed shock revelations every quarter of an
hour or so just as the plot seems to have lost its way, until you are
waiting for the next with bated breath but complete certainty that it
will arrive.
As ever in his work, Kelly's themes in this intriguing play are only
ever peripherally addressed but include the effect of 9/11 and 7/7 on
ordinary people, the way that childhood traumas never leave some people
and the fear and suspicion that has become the norm on some London housing
estates today.
Philip Fisher
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