[Offiv'l Gem-89m theatre comedy dance music books
THEATRE PREVIEW Vomit And Roses****
Black comedy from across the pond
Played at the hectic pace of the other play under the Americana Absurdum umbrella, Wolverine Dreams, Vomit And Roses launches a similarly nihilistic assault on the American value system. Borrowing a synopsis from American film, whereby big time corporate capitalist attempts to swallow bourgeois smallholding capitalist, this piece treats like for like, playing each with equivalent ideological malice. The smallholders concerned are an undertaker's firm, an unprepossessing lot, whose toying with dead flesh creates a kind of bilious hilarity. Meanwhile daughter needs a date for the prom, and comes up with Lieutenant William Calley, whom some British audiences will not recognise as the architect of the Me Lei Massacre.
Brian Parks' script is as literate as it is ingenious, though the aphoristic nature of his dialogue occasionally has his characters speaking in quotation marks to the
Aug, 7.75pm, £70 (£9).
extent of disrupting the physical action. The playing though, is splendid, with the characters assuming the detached, two dimensional qualities required for this kind of grotesquerie. The use of sudden blackouts and rapid transitions makes for deft narrative framing in a production which sees director John Clancy display some clever stagecraft. As prettin structured as a formaldehyde frenzy could be. (Steve Cramer)
; :Americana Absurdum: Vomit And Roses (Fringe) The Present Company Assembly Rooms (Venue 3) 226 2428, 25 & 27
'Bilious hilarity': Vomit And Roses
BOOKS PREVIEW
Scottish Society Of Playwrights
New resource for Scottish theatre
Why is it that so many modern classics of Scottish theatre are forgotten? Colin Mortimer, President of the Scottish Society Of Playwrights, has views on the subject: ’If you’re not published, you don't exist. A lot of great plays get forgotten, because so few go into print, and there’s no access to them after the production finishes.’
This event seeks to rectify the problem by making available a website which Will act as a resource for Scottish plays. There are currently 72 entries available on the site, and soon to be more. This erI introduce an unparalleled access to modern Scottish theatre, and allow theatre companies and amateurs to work with preVIously forgotten work. Introducing the event Will be five heavy-hitters of the Scottish stage; John McGrath, Edwin Morgan and Hector MacMilIan, representing the older generation of Scottish writing, and Nicola McCartney and Isabel Wright, the younger. You may have few other opportunities to see five such writers together again. (Steve Cramer)
,-- , Scottish Socrety Of Playwrights (Book Festival) Charlotte Square, 624 5050, 27 Aug, 7pm, free, but ticket required.
explains. 'The record is about the
? With technology and the idea of
the Liquid Room the band intend to take time off from touring, so this : could be your last chance for a while
Johnstone) i '-.,i Grandaddy (Fringe) The liquid
MUSIC PREVIEW Grandaddy
Moving and fragile rock from California country boys
OPERA PREVIEW
La Clemenza Di Tito 8: Penelope
Opera concentrates on the music
Grandaddy are currently ploughing a fairly lonely furrow in American guitar music with their seductive line in intelligent, thoughtful and adventurous rock. Their recent second album, The Sophtware Slump, is a sumptuous blend of kooky keyboard sounds and guitars that can be both fragile and destructive, and it deals with a somewhat unusual subject matter, as drummer Aaron Burtch
Opera is expensive. Yet cost alone is not the only factor involved in concert performance versus full staging. Opera in a concert context allows greater
relationships that human beings have
obsolescence in both technology and nature,’ he says.
Since the album was released in May, ‘ these five unassuming country boys from Modesto, California have been touring constantly. Live they’re not exactly pyrotechnics and chest beating, their subtle understated performances letting the mUSIC do the talking for them. After this show at
to Witness their abundant talents. Make sure you take it. (Doug
Room (Venue 773) 0747 339 8383, 29 Aug 7.30pm, [8.
concentration on the music, especially useful when the piece is as unfamiliar as Faure's Penelope. Typical Faure, the piece is full of beautiful melodies and with the American Michelle DeYoung who needs staging? Telling the story of Ulysses returning to his faithful wife from the Trojan war, it is a simple plot compared to La Clemenza di Tito, also presented in concert performance. Mozart's last opera, it has an immensely powerful sense of drama. The tale is complex. Love, jealousy and power all loom large. Owing to the birth of his first child, Ian Bostridge has withdrawn from the title role. In his place is the young Austrian tenor Johannes Chum. Due to illness, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson has also withdrawn and is replaced by the Czech mezzo Magdalena Kozena. (Carol Main) 3 La Clemenza di Tito (International) Festival Theatre, 25 Aug, 7. 75pm, f5—f3l. Penelope (International) Festival Theatre, 27 Aug at 7. 75pm, £5—f37.
COMEDY
Infinite Number Of Monkeys Do Gravity *1” Wise monkeys give physics lesson Gravitational theory is a rather dry premise on which to base a show, but Infinite Number Of Monkeys, having tackled Shakespeare last time round, are ready, this time, to unravel the comic potential of physics. There's no plot, as such, but that's hardly a problem as we race through a few hundred years of scientific theory in less than an hour, finding comedy hidden in comets, apples, the Pope and the Great Fire of London. There's too much material here that could easily be lost, but Infinite Number Of Monkeys have definitely hit the ground running. (Leon McDermott) :5 Infinite Number Of Monkeys Do Gravity (Fringe) Gilded Balloon (Venue 36) 226 2757, until 28 Aug, 6.30pm, £8 (£7).
Grapple with the apple: Infinite Number Of Monkeys
54 THE LIST FESTIVAL GUIDE 24 Aug—2 Sep 2000