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The
Edinburgh Fringe
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Fringe 2009 Reviews (68)The Shape of Things What an incredibly assured production of a knockout of a play! What a mind melt. Nerdy college student Adam meets Evelyn, a spunky postgrad art student who is about to vandalise a statue in the museum he works at. It's "false art", apparently, the plaster fig leaf having been added a few years ago after a public petition against offensive nudity. As Adam and Evelyn get together there are many more such debates about the value of art: and in particular, should art ever be censored and can it ever go too far. This makes it sound unbearably academic, whereas in fact the dialogue sparks and smoulders, and the human relationships are at the centre. When Adam quotes Wilde, "there is no universal truth in art", the play's really talking about the basic subjectivity of all human viewpoints and what this means for two people trying to understand each other. There's also some witty stuff about Evelyn's militant feminism, refusing to be stifled by "the male voice" which more specifically is Adam's boorish friend Phillip. "Let her speak," she roars at him as he talks over his timid fiancée Jenny; then to the abashed and silent Jenny, frustratedly, "Did you have anything to say?". Evelyn's a good influence, we think, as Adam spruces up and trims down. His confidence rises and he even starts to have the makings of a womaniser. The twist sheds new light on all of this. It's a comment on society's obsession with the "surface and shape of things" but also, much more disturbingly, it's about the fanatical artist for whom there is "no religion, no community, no family - there is only art". Among a great cast, Kira Sternbach is electric as Evelyn, with her mix of cuteness, blazing combativeness, and steely sculptor's eye. Corinne Salisbury East Such lungs on these young actors that I can't imagine any real East End bruiser outdoing them. The five performers from Castle Theatre, a student company from Durham, throw themselves headlong into the brutality and poetry of Berkoff's semi-mythical East End world. These are tales of sex with teenagers; of women raped down alleyways; of two men beating each other's brains out and so becoming firm friends; of a mother accidentally pleasuring her son. The language meanwhile is so inventive and often so lofty that you cannot fail to see Berkoff's intention: these are brutes bred on Shakespeare. "Thou discharge from thy mother's womb," one insult goes; "Anoint the cunt with death" shouts an onlooker to a fight. Amid all the abhorrent behaviour there is such pride in their identity, and a belief in the power of folkloric exaggeration to cement that identity. The various locales of East London are transformed into legendary sites of all deeds valiant and hideous - it becomes basically the whole world. The play is a sort of elegy for this sense of an identity that is rooted to a physical place. But let me re-emphasise, there is nothing romantic or admirable on show. Perhaps most repellent of all is the character who rants in support of Oswald Mosely and his plans to cleanse the country of invading foreigners. In grotesque black and white facepaint, the cast sing, pose and screech their way through numerous characters. All are excellent, with Cassie Bradley standing out with a strident, completely masculine performance as one of the lads-about-town. The sense of vaudeville unreality is complemented by Owen Roberts on piano underscoring the action. There's also a very good silent film re-enacting the violent story we have just heard as a jolly farce. This show is not for the faint-hearted, but it is worth it for brief exposure to a fascinating, toxic world. Corinne Salisbury Certain Dark Things
Last year, You Need Me wowed Edinburgh audiences with How it Ended, a charming piece of theatre involving an international cast who created their own physical and audible world. Certain Dark Things feels very much like Part Two, using similar techniques and an equally tempestuous story once again set amongst outsiders. Played in the round under the direction of Emily Watson Howes, the drama starts in Bilbao exactly half a century ago. It centres on the family of Mikel, a quiet young man played with great sensitivity by Roger Ribó. He is doubly an outcast. Much to the concern of Miren Alcala who does a fine job playing his mother, Javier Lavin as her husband is a supporter of the Basque nationalists (presumably the grouping that is now ETA and has recently been worrying holidaymakers to Majorca) and wants to recruit their son to oppose Franco's excesses. As if this were not enough, Mikel spurns the advances of pretty Mari (Fran Moulds) through more than mere shyness. While he initially seems quiet, when the boy meets Inigo Ortega Martinez's strong, bearded Inaki a flood of passion is unleashed. The play moves on a dozen years after that Edinburgh rarity, an interval, finding Mikel a successful businessman in Madrid who has turned his back on the family. By then, he has lost use of his right arm possibly under torture. He has though gained a symbolic equivalent in the attractive form of a wife Julia (Kate Hewitt). The play reaches its climax after the Basques are reunited and Mikel is forced to face up to his past and consider the future. This company presents beautifully crafted work, creating visual images from the simplest props and sounds naturally, accompanied by Seriol Davies adaptable cello, bowed, plucked and even used as percussion. This creates a great atmosphere and the sole criticism is that a story with an hour of life in it was stretched to 100 minutes. Philip Fisher |
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