Theatre
NEXT ISSUE OUT WEDNESDAY 15 AUGUST
WOODY SE2
Exploring the Wisdom of Woody Guthrie O...
TRUCKSTOP Emotional thriller 0...
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80 THE LIST FESTIVAL MAGAZINE - 'v
TRUTH IN TRANSLATION
Play for peace with a positive outlook 000
LIFE IN A MARITAL INSTITUTION Affairs of the heart 00..
There can be few more engaging acts on this year's Fringe than James Braly. There‘s a winning, self effacing smile, mixed with the occasional giggle throughout his performance, and despite the, at times. emotionally harrowing subject matter. Braly contrives to induce a certain lightness of heart in his audience that might surprise.
In this piece, he mixes the account of 23 years of marriage with the tale of his adored sister‘s death from cancer. a lifelong and quietly loving fight with a pathologically adversarial family and encounters with a psychiatrist in his youth. But there‘s more - an affair, of sorts, with a glamorous French woman, a brief account of an early girlfriend, a more extended account of the birth of his second child as well as a dinner party from hell with a group of appalling alternative lifestyle types. But I‘m just scratching the surface.
Throughout, what both intrigues and amuses is his assurance with pacing. nuance and delivery. As Braly paints pictures with language, we can't help but see in quite vivid detail the eccentricities of a wife who insisted on such matters as placenta-freezing and breastfeeding boys aged six. We can also feel, with vigorous authenticity, his grief as he deals with a dying sister, a conceivably avaricious boyfriend demanding a deathbed wedding and a family that thrives on what he calls tantric conflict. But through all this we rarely veer far from amusement, so the moments that really hit home do so with power. This is a highly recommended show about grown-up experience, and the strategies we use to displace it. (Steve Cramer)
A GLANCE AT NEW YORK
Old-time vaudevulle transplanted to the present 0000
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