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The
Edinburgh Fringe
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Fringe 1997 Reviews (8)Steven Berkoff How are the mighty fallen! A new play by Steven Berkoff is an event, a cause for excitement, as the long queue outside the Assembly Rooms testified. And it's an intriguing, even tittilating, subject - the massage parlour. The programme note looks promising: Berkoff is fascinated by the peculiarly English euphemisms about and ambivalent attitudes towards these places. There was a feeling of excitement in the air as we waited in the Edinburgh sunshine to be admitted. But oh dear! oh dear! oh dear! Berkoff in drag, in a performance which makes Lily Savage look subtle. People walked out - the first lot, in fact, went the wrong way and had to come back ito the auditorium, something which many of the audience (myself included) found funnier than the play. The floodgates didn't exactly open thereafter, but I can honestly say that I have never seen so many people leave a theatre during a show. To be perfectly honest, I would have gone myself, had I been an ordinary audience member, but as, a critic, I felt I had to see it through to the (bitter) end. As a result, I was treated to the unedifying spectacle of one of the (I think) greats of British theatre leaving the script and heckling those who were leaving, for all the world like a stand-up comic in a working men's club. I had found myself sitting beside an American theatre professor and at the end we looked at each other and shook our heads sadly. "Do you think he realises just how bad this is?" my new acquaintance asked. I hope so. What was so bad? The first time Berkoff mimed a "hand-job" on an imaginary penis three or four feet long, culminating in a mimed fountain, it was mildly amusing, but by the time he'd done it half a dozen times, it was... well, let's be kind and say it was boring. Then there was the "story": simply expressed, a woman works in a massage parlour, offering "relief" to customers. One day her husband avails himself of the parlour's services and discovers his wife works there. End of story. There is verse. I call it verse: it certainly is not poetry. At times mock-Shakespearean, at times mock-lyrical, it reaches its nadir as the husband describes a voyeuristic episode with two fourteen year old girls. Do I really need to go on? Let me sum it up: Massage is, quite simply, the worst thing I saw on the Fringe this year, and - quite probably - the worst thing Steven Berkoff has ever done. To repeat the beginning of this review: how are the mighty fallen! Leaveners Theatre Company Publicised as a "Gulliver's Travels" for today, this piece uses masks and music to take a hard look at contemporary Britain and, in particular, at the plight of those ordinary, decent people who live in places like Moss Side in Manchester or the Meadow Well on Tyneside. It is, in the best sense of the word, political theatre. It's Quaker theatre too, for the group has its roots in the Quaker movement, and reflect that sect's preoccupation with social problems. The company of five (two women and three men, one of whom is mainly a musician) play a variety of roles on a very simple set. They sing (all have good voices), and their commitment both to theatre and to the "message" of the play shines through everything they do. The performances are strong and confident, and they certainly swept the audience along with them. The script is lively and - unlike some political theatre (which, as a genre, can be terribly depressing and so, so earnest and worthy) - lively and even witty. It did sag a little in the middle of the second act when it became overtly didactic, another political theatre weakness which, apart from this one short period, it managed to avoid. Generally, however, it did what the genre should do - entertained and made its point without tub-thumping and rhetoric. The audience (and the theatre was almost full) left amused, entertained, and thoughtful. Only during the "didactic bit" did one sense their attention beginning to slip - and that is what prevents it from being a five star show. The Cheviot, the Stag, and the Black, Black Oil *** Eclipse Theatre Company The Cheviot, the Stag, and the Black, Black Oil is a very special play for me, for, in its original incarnation (by the 7:84 Company), it had an enormous influence upon me and my attitudes towards theatre. So when I saw it in the Fringe programme, it was the first show I selected as a "must see". And today it has particular relevance, now that Scotland has to choose - or not - devolution. Eclipse Theatre Company is a group from Strathclyde University, Glasgow. Only a few are Drama students: they come from many disciplines. So, has it the same power? The answer is that it does, even in a production which was, technically, rather weak. To be honest, the company wasn't really up to it. The standard of acting varied from the reasonable and competent to the just about acceptable. The Gaelic singing was good but the ceilidh structure was somewhat submerged, mainly because neither director nor company had the technical ability to vary the pace or the attack. The real characters weren't sufficiently real, nor were the caricatures sufficiently over the top, so that they tended to merge. On the other hand, the intrinsic power of the piece and the obvious commitment of the young company carried it along, and so the message did get across. It was one of those strange situations where technical expertise did not seem to matter. The play has attained almost cult status and there was an air almost of ritual about the performance and the audience's relation to it - and I use that word relation quite deliberately. It sold out for most of its run, in advance of the first performance, and that says a lot. Really, in spite of everything, it was a very satisfying evening.
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