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Fringe 2010 Reviews (2)
Dusk on the River Nile
Zakar Theatre
Zoo Roxy.
**
It is certainly an interesting premise, gap year students traveling through Egypt performing a play about the ancient gods, when the ancient gods turn up none too pleased with the shoddy way they were being portrayed.
The shoddy production was undoubtedly shoddy, they really couldn't have made it any worse, though it was only with the arrival of the gods Osiris and Isis that you realised that was the point. However when Osiris and Isis took the reins to show the actors how it was done, very little improved. Perhaps proving you can't make a purse out of a sow's ear or perhaps proving that first impressions are usually right.
This was a confusing, random and clumsy attempt to tell a several thousand year old story. The mix of ancient and modern proved really off-putting, Osiris one of the most powerful Ancient Egyptian gods, former ruler of Egypt, Judge of the Dead, uses the f-word at one point, was this clumsy improvisation? Or did the writer think it would liven up the god of the afterlife?
I shouldn't take it personally but my portrayal was rather wet, but then my brother was directing.
Yours Egyptian God of Chaos and Misrule,
Seth (Ewin)
Daniel Sloss: My Generation
Pleasance Dome.
***
Despite looking like he was about to burst into tears, the blond boy from Fife proves very confident on stage. Sloss is a laid back comedian who, even though he ventures into some dark humour, retains a boyish innocence.
His theme of youth allows for plenty of fun anecdotes about teenage life, much masturbation. He delivers them well, though I was hoping for something a little grittier from someone raised in Kirkcaldy.
Some elements of his comedy routine do need more work. He was less confident in his interaction with members of the audience, a key skill for stand-up. In general Sloss does seem to shy away from delving deeper, both with the audience and with his own material. For when he does attempt something darker he usually backs out afterwards.
Sloss definitely has the makings of a good comedian, the attitude, the timing, the glint in his eye, but he can afford to push his act a bit further.
Seth Ewin
The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui
By Bertolt Brecht
Braindead Theatre Company
C central.
***
This show should consider listing itself under dance the number of times the cast break into a routine. Mr G (Laurens Whittingham) is particularly adept on his toes, though it is Ui (Haydn Evans) all glowering looks and chiseled cheek bones who makes the show.
Evans delivered the role just right, sending up Hitler without hamming it up. The rest of the cast are often larger than life, in keeping with Brecht, although at times it is a bit too much for the small venue. G feels almost too in your face, but that is kind of the point and that is better than Roma (Charlie Siveyer) who really lacks guts in his role.
The mix of gangsters, molls and freaky masks creates the right aesthetic. Dogsborough (Jack Cross), great mask and good performance from Cross, who as well as being a hunched old fool, uses his physicality to really differentiate his many other parts. As Dulfeet he is beautifully beaten by G, one of many sharp juxtapositions of violence and music.
A right-on ridiculing of the rise of the Third Reich.
Seth Ewin
Penelope
By Enda Walsh
Druid Theatre
Traverse 1.
***
Enda Walsh, who seems to have an annual slot at Traverse, has his own unique authorial voice that owes much to Joyce and Beckett.
His brand of absurdism can seem to be constructed from non sequiturs but at its best, has a poetry that attains strange beauty.
Four men with Irish names and accents are stranded in an empty swimming pool complete with malfunctioning barbeque. They simultaneously dream of their own destruction in true Grecian style, fried by the unnamed Odysseus, the husband of the beautiful Penelope.
The combative foursome collectively decide that the only chance to save themselves and their island is to win the hand of Penelope through their ability to pontificate.
This leads to a series of monologues exuding existential angst, allowing each of Niall Buggy, Denis Conway, Karl Shiels and Tadhg Murphy to shine. The poetry jam is then followed by a bizarrely camp cabaret that must have challenged Shiels (and his dresser) to the full.
Symbolically raised above them in her luxury penthouse, an impassive, immobile Penelope looks on disdainfully in her designer frock, probably baffled and enchanted in roughly equal measure, as many viewers will be.
Philip Fisher
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