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Fringe 2009 Reviews (18)
As You Were
The Bridge
Sweet Grassmarket
***
Soldiers continue to fight long after the ceasefire. Agonies borne
within war ferment outside of it. And it is not just the private that
endures - wives and loved ones on the home front experience anguish,
grief and back-lash.
A splicing together of verbatim accounts - and decorated cleverly with
choice music and devised physicality - As You Were commendably
sheds light on the variety of human suffering wrought by military conflict.
It doesn't try to unpick the politics of any given war; it is not a
harangue. It is a thoughtful depiction of war's less conspicuous punishments.
There are some vital inclusions: the capture and destruction of youth
is pressed home; compassion is shown to be a complex and elusive commodity;
the recurring motif of jig-saw puzzle pieces seems to represent, albeit
obliquely, loss, fracture and innocence.
Some of the scenes/vignettes are a little long and unsupportive, and
one character's accent is too bombastic and muddled to encourage sympathy
with his tale. Ultimately though, this is purposeful, intriguing and
well-executed.
Ben Aitken
Your Number's Up
Roundhouse Theatre Company
Assembly@George Street
****
It is Camden at night. A boy has collapsed and ten people, all obliquely
connected, gather round to joke, panic and, should the audience wish
it, die.
The crowded, cacophonic opening of the play also serves as its climax,
demonstrating the cyclical and inescapable work of fate. Or is it clueless
chance that rules catastrophe? That rules our lives?
The Roundhouse's inaugural theatre company have produced a frank, comic
and thoughtful play that covers a lot of ground. The back-stories and
calamities of the ten characters survey a myriad of issues: racial profiling;
incest; gender inequality; destiny; lesbianism.
At moments the writer inflects the gaze upon himself, making fun of
theatrical cliché and artifice. The effect is a sense of playfulness
that allows the play's comedy and pathos to be fully embraced.
Your Number's Up offers a surfeit of concerns and intents without
ever seeming over-loaded. The writing is adroit, in-touch and often
hilarious. The direction allows the strands of the narrative to mesh
seamlessly: scene transitions are swift, conversations overlap, and
characters clamber over (and onto) one another.
To single out individual performances would be to do a disservice to
the collective excellence. Each cast member optimizes the vitality of
their character; there is a sense of balance and proportion, and thus
maturity.
This is a promising debut from a company obese with talent. At the
end of the show, being utterly enamoured, I wished to take the cast
home with me and make them lunch. But then I remembered that if I were
to do this I would most likely get stabbed, become pregnant or contract
pubic lice.
Ben Aitken
Me Too: A Sideshow
Quade Ulrike
New Town Theatre
****
This is like nothing I have seen, heard, eaten or done before. Daisy
and Violet are Siamese twins who share five breasts between them, two
of them on their bottom. They mother a child - a puppet with ginger
hair called Arthur. Daisy puts a gun in her twin's mouth, performs erotic
magic tricks and, most importantly, demands a conceptual and philosophical
engagement from her audience.
This is a one woman show which displays surrealism, physical dexterity
and uncompromised theoretical intentions. The sum of this is a mesmerising,
slightly galling hour which leaves one unsure of theatre, art and, perhaps
purposefully, Quade Ulrike's message(s).
In this world the distinction between fantasy and sanity collapse.
There appears to be a recurring attack on men - ten rotating, shiny
dildos are satirically celebrated - but the main concern is with the
struggle of the woman: with suppression, motherhood and freedom.
This is not for the easily irritated. It requires an intellectual and
generous investment. It is to be marvelled at, laughed at and decoded.
Just don't expect to find answers or convention here.
Ben Aitken
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