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Fringe 2009 Reviews (96)
I Wonder Sometimes Who I Am
By Tom Duggan, Tom Lyall and Mischa Twitchin
Forest Fringe
**
Forest Fringe is to the Fringe as the Fringe is to the Edinburgh International
Festival, a poorer, grungier cousin with its own aesthetic.
If it has a reputation, it is a place frequented by the hippier elements,
the kinds of performers who might normally be seen on street corners,
often with big followings. This is not a venue to see Shakespeare or
Ayckbourn. Conceptual art of the unintelligible type seems a far better
bet.
If I Wonder Sometimes Who I Am is representative and BTG really
ought to spend more time at this venue to find out, the reputation is
wholly justified.
The short piece has three elements. Music from Arnold Schönberg,
his voice taken from interviews given in the US on either side of World
War Two, and visual effects.
The music is sometimes crackly, denoting age but always pleasant, especially
Verklärte Nacht, and while the main source is apparently
the composer's Music to Accompany a Silent Film, there are other
selections from works composed or arranged by Schönberg.
The speech talks about art and is intended to complement the music.
The visual creation primarily features hands. This can be hard to interpret
but in the last few minutes, there is a fascinating flame effect, some
handsome hands in play and then a light show straight that could have
been drawn from a modern art gallery.
The whole is altogether strange but to an extent seductive, although
there is a nagging fear that pretentiousness is too large a part of
this game.
Philip Fisher
Oklahomo! Far From Kansas
London Gay Men's Chorus
Sweet ECA
****
Lock up your sons! Far From Kansas are back in Edinburgh with their
hot pulsating new musical, spurting forth innuendo into the wide eyes
of the audience.
Musically this a powerful choir, but this is more than a camp concert;
with their tongues firmly in their cheeks the men of Oklahomo tell their
story.
At Dick's Halfway Inn, Oklahomo, the guys are failing in their quest
for love when a tallish, darkish, Scottish stranger (David Grant) strolls
in. While Grant´s accent certainly isn´t north of the border
his rendition of 'I'm Just A Girl Who Can't Say No' kinda made me forget
about minor dialect quibbles.
Grant is an energetic and charming leading man, but the show is really
held together by the Halfway Inn´s Dick (Paul Khan) whose Phil
Silvers-style wit keeps the dialogue snappy between songs.
The power, humour and joy of this choir are unbeatable, they give you
a warm feeling inside.
Seth Ewin
The Ultimately Doomed Life
of Charlie Cumcup
Aireborn Theatre
Sweet ECA
***
Abstract avant garde is usually a staple of the festival and this bizarre
piece of strangely captivating insanity brings a whole new meaning to
the idea of an off-the-wall idea. The audience were greeted with lipstick
stained cups of tea given out by an old woman with a foul mouth and
a bitter attitude. Shortly afterwards an old man ambled on stage and
told the audience at great length that he was the archetypal old man,
and as such had never been young. He lived in an old house with the
ghost of his wife, haunting him as she was shortly before her own death,
maddened by cancer and senility.
His only other companion is his son Charlie, the titular cumcup. Worryingly,
this very literal description of the odd looking titular tea-cup proved
to have been the receptacle for the old man's seed once a month since
his wife passed on.
To try and further explain the plot would be an exercise in torture,
as it blatantly isn't meant to make sense, although enough offhand comments
are strewn throughout to hint that the queer situation may not even
be the Old Man's delusion. The actors playing the old couple thoroughly
embraced the roles, moving with a painful slowness and never letting
the bizarre characterisations slip. Equally the voice of Charlie is
performed brilliantly, especially during a lengthy and uncomfortably
intimate discourse with a member of the audience, who may or may not
have been a plant, after being unceremoniously left alone on the stage
to chat with the cup. It's an exercise in the absurd, which proves quite
funny and amongst the far more serious and plot-driven festival fare
this year, it makes a welcome addition.
Graeme Strachan
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