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The
Edinburgh Fringe
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Fringe 1999 Reviews 7Riddance The question in my mind as I entered Traverse 2, the smaller of the two theatres in the building, was whether or not Paines Plough could achieve the same heights this year as they did last with Sarah Kane's Crave. That they did should not really have come as any surprise, for this company has a commitment to their material which, although not unique, is unusual in that they don't try to bend the play to their way of doing things, but allow the piece itself to dictate the approach. There is, however, one common factor in their approach, a commitment to ensemble work, which was so superbly evident last year and is again in 1999. Riddance is a more accessible piece than Crave, in that it has a more conventional structure. As the advertising blurb tells us, it is about "two men and a woman bound together by the secrets of surviving a childhood in a Glasgow tenement." Two of them, the woman, Claire, and one man, Kenny, moved away and have lived close together and remained friends since their childhood: one man, Frank, beaten by his ather as a child, stayed in Glasgow, but now, twenty years later, Kenny receives a phone call: Frank is on his way. Kenny exudes an air of quiet desperation: he is obsessed with cleanliness, with the litter our lives produce. Claire is uptight, on the edge. Both nurse guilt from their childhood and youth, and the imminent arrval of Frank scares them. It is a common - one might almost say hackneyed - theme, but Riddance, with its heightened language, striking imagery and tight construction, transcends the commonplace. This is a fine piece of work - Linda McLean's first full-length play - and Vicky Featherstone's direction and the performances of Lewis Howden (Kenny), Carolyn Bonnyman (Claire) and Neil McKinven (Frank) do it full justice. As always, Paines Plough delivers! Werewolves There were a few seats vacant for this first night of Helena Kaut-Howson's first production with Theatre Archipelago, but not many, and given the power of the piece, tickets will be a rare commodity for the rest of its run. It begins seemingly naturalistically. In a farmhouse a man in his fifties and his mother bicker. She has clearly dominated and controlled him when he was young and now the tables are turned. He is making a big animal trap but it soon becomes clear that it isn't for animals but for humans. He sees two people - male and female - away in the distance by the woods and they are coming towards the house. He goes to set the trap for them... Who are these people? Why does he want to trap them? Here we have the first signs that perhaps all is not as clear as it appears on the surface, and from here the play develops layer upon layer of convoluted time, slipping in and out of reality, into a dreamlike - or, rather, nightmarish - state, revealing a deeper reality of jealousies, lusts, cruelty and murder. It is a darkly powerful piece, superby directed and performed Yet again a company at the Traverse triumphantly exemplifies what most other companies on the Fringe are striving towards. Next page - - - Index |
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