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Fringe 2010 Reviews (44)
Bane 2
By Joe Bone
Pleasance Dome.
****
In the usual format of sequels, the middle section of the Bane trilogy is a darker and more unforgiving turn than the original performance. Aiming to create a larger, more exciting story, Bane is confronted with a new set of foes including an old friend mutated by toxic waste. However Bane himself is tottering on the brink of his own sanity having, by his own admission, started to leave a trail of collateral damage in his wake instead of the coldly clean kills of the first piece leading him to meet with a psychiatrist and get his noggin looked at from the inside.
The darker nature of Bane 2 means that it’s simply not as much fun as the first piece, with moments where we genuinely begin to feel sorry for Bane, while at the same time are shocked by some of his actions. Joe Bone lopes, mugs and twists himself about the stage like a pro while Ben Roe provides his usual excellence in accompaniment on guitar.
There are, however, a few moments where the sheer frenetic exuberance make it unclear exactly what is going on but the manic pace and constant bombardment of hysterical moments keeps the pace from slacking, and with the final cliffhanger ending leaving the audience gasping, it’s clear that the theatres will be packed when Bane returns next year.
Graeme Strachan
The Rope in Your Hands
By Siobhan O'Loughlin
Quaker Meeting House.
**
Considering the depth of feeling held for New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, it's surprising that there aren't more shows which have looked at the aftermath of the events and the real effects it has had on the people of the city. O'Loughlin's talking heads style piece gives the audience a viewpoint on the disaster through the eyes of 13 residents of the city, all from varying lifestyles and backgrounds.
O'Loughlin acquits herself well by investing each of the voices with enough of a personality that the audience can recognise each by mannerisms and pose as much as by the captioned projection behind her, transforming from a middle age man to a geriatric woman and then to a small child with some relative ease.
The majority of the stories focus on the events after the disaster, many of which wax with disdain about the lack of help given by the Government and the social and ethnic divisions in the help and aid provided to the survivors. The problem is that this miasma of stories gives us some frank opinions but ultimately doesn't really go anywhere. There is a general feeling left afterwards that not enough was done, but there are no real conclusions drawn and the entire piece feels, as a result, slightly unfinished.
Graeme Strachan
Expectations
By Kristina Brändén
GEST Gothenburg English Speaking Theatre, Götenborg, Sweden
Pleasance Dome.
****
Two couples, one Swedish and one English, are expecting their first child. Both learn, in utero, that the child will be disabled. Both couples deal with it differently. But, because the genetic cause of the disability is so rare, the two women manage find each other on the internet. Four years on, their emotional journey ends up bringing the two couples together.
Based on the author’s own experience, this powerful play highlights the emotional journey of both couples and the decisions that they must make for themselves and for their family. It is heart wrenching to watch these four people examine the choice that they have made and that the others have made; this is four different stories about dealing with choices. It is very much a reflective piece where the participants try to justify and resolve their choices and actions.
The play, for the most part, is riveting. We make the journey of discovery with the couples. Its strength is mostly in the couples and their relationship. The flaw, if any, is in the believability of how the couple finally meet. It seems a little too contrived. This may be the fault of the director’s or actors’ inability to justify the circumstance but, more likely, the author hasn’t been able to make this work as a dramatic tool. Still this is a production well worth seeing for all of the elements: acting, directing, script, sound and lights.
Catherine Lamm
Reykjavík
By Jonathan Young
Shams
The Bongo Club.
***
Looking like a cross between polar explorers and scene of crime officers in our gauzy white coveralls, we help Jonathan disinter and analyse his past. Though he feels far enough removed from his past self to refer to him as a distinct character – Yonatan (the Icelandic pronounciation of his name), or simply Y – this is still an intensely, almost painfully personal show.
Reykjavík minutely examines every possible long-term and short-term cause of a single, life-changing outcome: the breakup of Yonatan's relationship with S, an Icelandic woman he met in Paris, and by extension his life as an expat in Reykjavík. Could immutable destiny be the reason? The inevitable fate of the child to relive the life of the parent? Or one of the countless binary decisions every one of us makes every day?
Though the show is as introspective and self-interrogatory as it sounds, with a resultant tendency towards potentially alienating solipsism, it's also full of delightful technical innovations. Foggy goggles and coloured lights represent a near miss in a car in near-zero visibility. Several wheeled full-length mirrors create seemingly infinite corridors crowded with possibilities. The whole experience is like studying a fascinating fossil through a microscope. The level of obsession doesn't seem healthy, and you have to work to understand its relevance to you, but every new angle reveals something else of interest.
Matt Boothman
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