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Fringe 2009 Reviews (80)
The Complete Works of William
Shakespeare [Abridged]
Black and White Rainbow
Just the Tonic @ The Caves
***
'The Reduced Shakespeare Company show with a female cast' - this show
does exactly what it says on the tin. And it is great fun. Having read
all of two books on Shakespeare, this intrepid trio from Cambridge proudly
wear their tights and pantaloons whilst making their way through the
Bard's canon with a few excursions in to World War II, an American football
game, a Roman cookery show and a rap version of Othello to name
but a few.
Delivering fantastic energy and a great sense of playfulness, these
three have all the impish good humour to pull this show off with panache.
Aided by an impressive performance by Ellie Ross, whose comic inventiveness
and timing marks her out as one to watch, this production will delight
Shakespeare enthusiasts and haters alike.
Sacha Voit
Carmina Burana
By Carl Orff
St Andrew's and St George's Church, George Street
****
As a little indulgent variety from the hurly-burly of theatre and comedy,
this production by Edinburgh Studio Opera offers an enjoyable musical
haven.
The venue is literally round and in this unusual space, Antonia Alonzo
has re-worked Orff's light opera for the Rat Pack era.
This means that, with a single exception, the performers are either
seen as gamblers in an upmarket Casino or three sets of showgirls, who
pair up by colour as flowers.
That exception is a sad man who poignantly doubles as Marilyn Monroe
and a post-Tchaikovsky dying swan.
Although occasionally the space swallows some voices, this primarily
student company sings beautifully, with the talents of several of the
soloists (not individually identified in the programme) suggesting that
a professional career might be possible.
The music too, directed (and conducted?) by Susannah Wapshott, is of
the highest quality, although some of the choreography and physical
performance might owe a little too much to an operatic tradition that
treats this as of lesser importance than the singing.
Overall, this is a great way to spend an hour just up the road from
the Assembly Rooms and is highly recommended.
Philip Fisher
Power Plant - A Sound and
Light Experience
Mark Anderson, Anne Bean, Jony Easterby, Kirsten Reynolds and Others
Assembly @ Royal Botanic Gardens
*****
It was a dark and stormy night. Even if it hadn't been a genuinely
dark and stormy night, it would have felt like one in the glasshouses
of the Royal Botanic Gardens, thanks to the Power Plant installation.
Full as they are of weird and wonderful rare flora, a visit to the glasshouses
is transportative even in broad daylight; but after nightfall, full
of stage smoke, humming and pealing with the alien sounds of the installation's
various objets d'art, the experience is nothing short of otherworldly.
Unlike Punchdrunk's Tunnel 228, perhaps the most closely analogous
event, it's difficult to miss anything Power Plant has to offer.
While there is no set route, and paths do diverge, and the pieces are
all nestled in the tropical jungle like they grew there, maps are provided,
and even without them an unhurried, mentally alert stroll through should
naturally pass all the exhibits. It's easy, therefore, to become totally
immersed in the atmosphere without worrying about missing out.
That atmosphere is due in large part to the sonic element of many of
the pieces, from Kirsten Reynolds' plinking, hissing gramophones, their
turntables replaced with cogwheels or astroturf, to Jony Easterby's
PLUMOSASCENS - Feathertum, which fills a whole glasshouse with
the massively amplified boom of a feather brushing taut guitar strings.
Mark Anderson's IGNIFER CONSPIRO - Pyrophones, a series of musical
braziers that belch plumes of flame along with pan-pipe whistles, is
a spectacular midpoint highlight. It's a groaning, flickering, whirring,
mutating, eerily beautiful world you won't want to leave.
Matt Boothman
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