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Fringe 2010 Reviews (12)
The Girl in the Yellow Dress
By Craig Higginson
Citizens Theatre, Live Theatre Newcastle and Market Theatre Johannesburg
Traverse 2.
**
Craig Higginson had a London success with Dream of the Dog, a beautifully judged psychological drama set in South Africa, which switched from the Finborough to the West End.
His new play also gets deep into the psychology of its characters, a mismatched pair living in Paris.
It starts when two intelligent, articulate people meet. They are an attractive English linguist Celia played by Marianne Oldham and her latest student, Nat Ramabulana as a handsome African-Frenchman Pierre.
Not all is as it appears. Having seen her once, Pierre has been stalking Celia for months but innocently, if that is possible.
Sympathies sway towards the lady, who seems oblivious to the potential danger. She has her own bad history, centring on her twin brother, with whom she has an oddly close relationship.
By the end of 90 minutes, we discover that both characters have based their search for love on lies, making one doubt their motivations.
In a baking hot theatre, this turns into a steamy drama performed well but, while both characters are accused of manipulation, perhaps Craig Higginson might be even more culpable of this trait.
Philip Fisher
Apples
By John Retallack, adapted from the novel by Richard Milward
Northern Stage and Company of Angels
Traverse at St Stephens.
****
Kids today! 15-year-olds nowadays act like mini adults and despite the odd cliché, John Retallack does a fine job of making us understand what it is like to be that age in Middlesbrough (or probably any other working class community) when childhood has gone out of fashion.
Three boys and three girls are first seen in their school uniforms. However, these are no tiny innocents even though the protagonists are named Adam and Eve. For them, the apples of the title are ecstasy tablets.
In a gripping production, expertly directed by the playwright, love, sex and violence all take their places, even if exams do not.
Therase Neve is Eve, a pretty blonde desired by all. Scott Turnbull’s Adam is a sweet geek who hasn’t even the courage to speak to her, unlike loud, brash Gary, Louis Roberts.
At that age though, with drink and drugs in liberal supply, Gary is happy to get his end away wherever the opportunity arises. The inevitable consequence is pregnancy but Eve is not the victim.
By the end, there have been a number of beatings, a death and lashings of sex and drug and rock ‘n’ roll, in an energetic production that keeps you on the edge of your seat throughout.
Philip Fisher
Flesh and Blood & Fish and Fowl
By Geoff Robelle and Charlotte Ford
Barrow Street Theatre, Burnt Umber Productions and Jean Doumanian
Traverse at St Stephens.
****
Congratulations to Geoff Robelle and Charlotte Ford. In a city where there are thousands of shows and it is impossible to come up with anything new, this American pair have done the impossible.
Flesh and Blood & Fish and Fowl starts rather slowly as a piece of physical theatre using comic mime.
One naturally wonders why a two-hander about office politics needs to be set in a massive space complete with false ceiling and over-engineered and clearly very costly set.
All becomes apparent as the office begins to get infested. A fly is no surprise, but gradually, ivy and then hordes of furry animals begin to threaten manic businessman Jerry and irritable secretary Rhoda, played by the show’s creators building to an incredible final scene.
By the end, the expense and effort has been fully justified in a completely bizarre comedy that defies description but should not be missed, if only because you will never see its like again.
Philip Fisher
Burst
By Omar El-Khairy
Paper Tiger Productions
The Zoo.
****
Al-Tayyib Salih‘s Seasons of Migration to the North is counted a classic of Arabic Literature. Omar El-Khairy’s adaptation marks the first time the story has been put on stage. It’s a beautiful, tightly-written, condensed version of a complex story about different time periods in the lives of one Sudanese family.
The main part of the play is set in Sudan in 1956; in the newly-liberated country, the engineers are trying to build a dam without Western help as a statement of their independence, and Hafeeza is arranging for her young daughter to be wed to one of the middle-aged engineers. The play also flashes back to the 1920s, where Hafeeza’s brother Mustafa as a young man is being caught up in the spin of decadent jazz-age London. In both time periods, initial idealism corrodes, cultural identities are questioned, and individuals are ultimately destroyed.
Hafeeza’s daughter Naima is a strange one – she’s always had bad dreams, intuitions and visions; she’s always daydreamed, and had an unnaturally close bond with her cousin Youssef. To watch her mother put her through the paces of preparation to be a teenage bride to a lustful older man is subtly disturbing.
Where El-Khairy’s skill really lies is in never over-stating his case; so that, for instance, the extent of Naima’s mental turmoil is kept under wraps, by the play as well as by her, until the final terrible scene where she is supposed to dance for her husband-to-be and unravels spectacularly in front of her audience. Equally he lets the dialogue speak for itself in Mustafa’s story: an educated Oxford graduate, he gets caught up first with the “Back to Africa” political movement among educated African expats, and then with a beautiful, self-destructive socialite named Cecily Brown. He cheats on her, she on him; as her ultimate revenge she destroys the photographs and relics of the home he has left behind – the only symbols he has of his cultural identity: complicated though it is, it is his. His revenge in turn is terrible.
It’s a really good story, told sensitively and with a fine sense of pace and natural exposition. Director Tanya Singh does particularly well at overlapping the two time periods – for instance, actress Joanna Bell will one moment be flitting about as Cecily, and then become a shawl-wearing neighbour of Hafeeza’s in the 1950’s the next. And there are a few superb moments when we realise that we’re seeing on stage different members of the same family, thirty years apart, frozen in their predicaments, their positions echoing each other. Again though, this is done with admirable restraint.
Bell is excellent as the destructive socialite, and Chiara Goldsmith convincingly fiery and hopeful as Elsie, Cecily’s lower-class dressmaker who first falls for Mustafa. El Razzougui as Mustafa has wonderful stage presence and a heartbreaking dignity. In the final trial scene, British society’s true feelings towards him come out – though he has, in their eyes, been able to successfully ape Western civilisation, “in your spiritual make-up there is a dark spot”, pronounces the unseen judge, “which you probably inherit from your ancestors”.
It’s the insidious, bred-in-the-bone but often superficially concealed nature of racism that destroys Mustafa. The ending is stunning – lights down on a moment of absolute tension, poised at the turn of history. It’s just such a gripping story: go see it for goodness’ sake.
Corinne Salisbury
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