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Fringe 2010 Reviews (14)
No Child …
By Nilaja Sun
Barrow Street Theatre and Scamp Theatre
Assembly Rooms.
*****
Nilaja Sun has been touring this show since 2006 and, even on a second viewing, it has the embarrassing power to leave a critic close to tearful.
Its origins lie in an American act of 2001 known as “No child left behind” that projected “teaching artistes” like Miss Sun into the toughest high schools in the country.
Malcolm X High School in the Bronx is as tough as they come, with the kids far more likely to end up in prison than a job. Worse, the class that she is tasked with taming has seen off five teachers in seven months.
The genius of No Child lies in a combination of brilliantly emotive writing and the acting skill to depict twenty or so characters, each of whom is instantly recognisable by voice and gesture, which must owe a great deal to director Hal Brooks.
The narrator is Janitor Baron, who doesn’t allow a mere problem like his own death from completing the task.
The tale that he tells starts off like a horror story, as the kids sass and threaten but gradually, they begin to wonder whether working on a production of Timberlake Wertenbaker’s Our Country’s Good might be an enjoyable diversion.
The piece is a perfect choice, with its play within a play about convicts trying to regain their pride in the constantly hostile landscape of eighteenth century Australia.
In an hour, these no hopers achieve the impossible, much to their own delight but also that of an audience that in a spontaneous gesture almost unheard of in Edinburgh give the star a heartfelt standing ovation.
She deserves it, together with every award going.
Philip Fisher
Swann & Company Present: The Sad, Miserable Tale of Albert Belacqua and His Family of Doomed Neurotics
Southampton University Students' Union Theatre Group
C Aquila.
****
From the first moment when the company walk out into the foyer of C Aquila, it’s clear that it’s going to be an interesting production. With Robert ‘serious jacket, serious play’ Swann, enthusiastically greeting the patrons outside the play with a hint of sick desperation edging the back of his eyes, the audience is clearly in for something unusual. As it stands, the story of Albert Belacqua and his oddly over-medicated family is only part of the story at hand here as the production within seconds of commencing becomes a play within a play with the fourth wall thrown all to hell.
What results is brilliantly funny series of farcical errors and fevered egos vying for time and space onstage as the players cope with Robert’s spousal jealously, a massively hungover cast member, sibling rivalry and the Fringe’s most concerning method actor. Written so as to work on various levels, the piece manages to have the audience soaking in buckets of laughter-driven tears.
The only slight flaw with the play comes in the form of a well delivered but misguidedly overlong soliloquy towards the end that marks a definitive tonal change. After the quickfire mayhem of the earlier scenes this part comes like a sledgehammer of seriousness that leaves the audience in a state of confusion. Nevertheless, the overall is still a wonderfully madcap piece of comedy theatre that shouldn’t be missed.
Graeme Strachan
Tristram Shandy
Reverend Productions
The Space Surgeons.
*
It was never going to be easy to condense the meandering and bizarre nine volumes of Tristram Shandy into an hour's stage traffic but there presumably could have been better ways of accomplishing it. Choosing to give the narrative some focus and meaning, the long and occasionally obscure tales are presented as the ramblings of the disturbed Mr Shandy; inexplicably turned out in full period dress, recounting stories to his modern-day therapist. In trying to get to the bottom of his deep-seated issues, he talks of his birth, his name and other seemingly random accounts of other people only loosely involved in the topic at hand.
Had this been a tighter script it could have worked better, instead of needlessly repeated similar exchanges between the therapist and Shandy, however the cast do well with what they have to work with, and a few pauses aside they are commendably committed to the task.
The real problem came from the presumably drunk or possibly insane technical operator who bafflingly seemed to be hitting audio cues and changing lights at random, leading to the audience sitting in full glare of the house lights for the opening ten minutes and to top it all off plunging the cast into absolute darkness as they stood to take their bows at the end. Unsurprisingly no hand of applause was offered to the technical box, and I maybe, just maybe could hear the sound of weeping as I walked out of the theatre; or maybe it was coming from my own heart.
Graeme Strachan
Mission of Flowers
CW Productions
C Aquila.
***
The new play by CW Productions tells the story of early 20th Century pilot Bill Lancaster and his torrid love affair with flying and his romance with the famous female aviator 'Chubby' Miller. The picture recounted here is a fictionalised account of his final days having crash landed in Mexico during a world record attempt. The script is based in part on the real notes left in his journal and on fuel cards as well as the historical records, interspersed with tracts of nostalgic reminiscing, pangs of guilt and lengthy self justifications for his actions.
This one man show performed by stage veteran, Leof Kingsford-Smith takes us through the slow, withering despondency of a man faced with an ever more certain fate. In his hands, Lancaster comes across as a tortured man; riddled with guilt over his breakup with his wife, his subsequent affair and the later loss of her to a love rival. All of which lend credence to the mystery as to his possible involvement in far darker actions.
The show builds slowly but firmly on a good script, yet it's hard to get fully involved, not because of the play itself but more because Lancaster is such a thoroughly unlikable and unredeemable curmudgeon. As Kingsford-Smith stalks around the stage, supping sparingly at his water, you can't help but feel that the more you hear about Lancaster, the less you want to know. Despite this, it is a still an affecting piece and skill and professionalism at work here more than maintains a pleasant interest for the duration.
Graeme Strachan
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