THEATRE
The Reader
****
Borderline tackle Berhard Schlink's novel
The Reader will be headline news this time next year, when Anthony Minghella’s film adaptation of Bernhard Schlink's novel is released. But you have a chance to see it here first, folks. Like Minghella's The English Patient, this piece contrasts historical fact with shifting, emotion-laden memory, but in The Reader, we're also delving into both an individual boy's, and a nation’s collective conscience.
In post-war Germany, Hanna Schmidt seduces fifteen-year-old Michael Berg, fresh-faced in his first flush of youthful vigour. It's clear something's terribly wrong, but in his eagerness to lose both his physical and emotional innocence, he falls headlong in love. Suddenly she disappears. He can never emotionally trust again, and by the 605 has become a firebrand legal whizz kid, only to discover that Hanna is one of six SS guards on trial for war- crimes.
Accused of sending women to their deaths and of allowing several hundred women to burn alive in a bombed church, her defence is that she was simply doing her job; that unlocking the doors would have lead to mass escape. Concentration camp favourites who kept her company in the evenings were kept under her protective wing for a month before being sent back to their deaths in Auschwitz. Turns out they didn't give her sexual favours, but simply read for her. Did she try to make the last months of these weakest inmates' lives bearable? Or did she kill those who could reveal her shaming secret — that she was illiterate?
Sentenced to life, Hanna makes parole in her mid-60$. Meanwhile, Michael has suffered. Unable to risk the pain of betrayal again, his youthful odyssey became a life imprisonment too as he lost his wife, child and job.
THEATRE PREVIEW
Colombia From Colombia’s streets to the Big
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To come across a show during the festival that does more than massage the egos of some wannabe thespians is Top unusual enough, but to find a show that provides a real social function as well as being good is unheard of. Roll up! Roll up! Colombia’s own Circo Para Todos will soon be in town.
Founded in 1997 with the help of lottery funding, it’s much more than just a circus. Director Felicity Simpson in Colombia picks up the story: ’lt's a professional Circus School but it’s got a social angle and usually the social and the circus are contrary. If this was a Chinese circus it would all be about ability — here it IS motivation that counts. The children all come from marginalised backgrounds, our main target is street children but we also work in slums, shanty tOanS and the
With an entourage of nineteen people, this is going to be a big
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Love against a backdrop of war crimes
The prison governor asks Michael to help Hanna prepare to re-enter the outside world, with unforeseen consequences . . .
Three actors on stage play the varied perspectives of Michael Berg, lover, lawyer and reader, in this complexly stage-managed play. Frenetic furniture- shifting in plain sight between scenes disturbs the flow, but then the entire structure of the play is disturbed by incessantly shifting perspectives, an aspect emphasised by the multimedia set displaying various points of view.
Thomas Mullins as Michael the boy, convincingly paws like a lecherous teen and is as wide-eyed and wide-mouthed as an eager puppy. The rest of the cast are generally very focused, although Carol Brannan doesn’t act much like a listener during the lengthy read-aloud passages from books.
Chris Dolan's script is mostly taut, apart from said lengthy passages, and the occasional slip into over- sentimentality and melodrama. Apart from one satirical moment, it's unremitting in its solemnity, making for a harrowing but extremely thought- provoking hour and a half. (Gabe Stewart)
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operation, Felicity guarantees we will 'never have seen anything like it before. It’s basically Latin New Circus with classical elements, plus we have great teachers from the Cuban Circus School’ (allegedly the best in the world). With 400 children in their community centres across Colombia (a country where children’s rights seem non-existent in the face of the growing number of ’disappeared'), this Festival show is only the tip of the iceberg in terms of talent soon to come out of South America’s most maligned country. Either way we are guaranteed this journey through Colombia's history Will be ’weird and wonderful’.
(Paul Dale)
:3 Colombia (Fringe) Circo Para Todos, The Meadows Theatre Big Top (Venue 189) 667 0202, 19—20 81 26 Aug, 3pm; 22—24 Aug, 7.30pm, £6 (£5). Circo Para Todos also perform Heranzas, until 20 Aug, 7.30pm; 22—26 Aug, 7pm, £8 (£6).
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Shows worth skiving off work for
Splendour
In keeping with the impressive range of new writing by female playwrights at the Traverse, Abi Morgan’s play examines the relationship between four women, against a backdrop of impending civil war. See review. Splendour (Fringe) Paines Plough, Traverse (Venue 75) 228 7404, until 26 Aug (not 21) various times, £9 (£6).
The King Of Scotland
Brian Pettifer takes centre stage for Theatre Babel, in Iain Heggie’s new adaptation of Gogol’s 'Diary Of A Madman’. See review. The King Of Scotland (Fringe) Theatre Babel, Assembly Rooms (Venue 3) 226 2428, until 28 Aug,
5. 7 5pm. £9/£70 (£8/£9).
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Buster Keaton's Our Hospitality
Keaton's 1923 silent classic gets a soundtrack to die for by bluegrass wizards the Blue Grassy Knoll. See review. Buster
Keaton ’5 Our Hospitality (Fringe) B/ue Grassy Knoll, Club P/easance @ Potterow (Venue 23) 556 6550, until 28 Aug (not 22) 5pm. £8/£ 9 (£7/£8).
Stiff — Undertaking Undertaking
Original knockabout farce devised and performed by talented newcomers Spymonkey. See review. Stiff — Undertaking Undertaking (Fringe) Spymonkey, Club P/easance @ Potterrow (Venue 23) 556 6550, until 28 Aug (not 21) 5.45pm, £7/£8 (£5/£6).
The Reader
See review, left. The Reader (Fringe) Borderline Theatre, Assembly Rooms (Venue 3) 226 2428, until 28 Aug (not 20) 3.30pm, £9/£70 (£8/£9).
Nadine Gordimer
The 1991 Nobel prize-winner discusses her non-fiction work, focusing on Living In Hope And History: Notes From Our Century, an account of her involvement with South Africa’s political struggles. Nadine Gordimer (Book) The Studio Theatre, 624 5050, Sun 20 Aug, 3.30pm, £6.50 (£4.50).
17—24 Aug 2000 THE lIST FESTIVAL GUIDE 33