Festival Theatre
www.list.co.uk/theatre
ON THE WATERFRONT Stylish re-imagining of a screen classic 0000
The English National Theatre didn’t know what to do with this project: a stage adaptation of the Budd Schulberg-scripted film that cemented Marlon Brando's status as the actor of his generation and scooped eight Oscars. Never one to shy away from a challenge, Steven Berkoff has created an affectionate homage to the screen classic, while moulding it to his own distinctive, anti-naturalistic style.
The director neatly circumnavigates the conundrum of adapting a social realist movie about mob violence and corruption, filmed on location in East Coast dockland. by completely eschewing cumbersome props and scenery in favour of precise, physical ensemble playing and beautiful expressionistic lighting. Simon Merrells gives a particularly compelling, nuanced performance as longshoreman Terry Molloy. torn between the mob and his love for the campaigning sister of a murdered colleague, referencing Brando's mannerisms and Method mumble without allowing his portrayal to slip into caricature. If the burgeoning love between Terry and Edie gets a bit lost on the vast stage at the Pleasance Grand, the pivotal scene in the taxi, in which Terry gives his ‘I coulda been a contender' speech, is gripping and moving. And the production truly comes alive in the scenes where the ensemble performs as a single unit, bringing bars, docks, even a pigeon coop to vivid life. using only their bodies and voices. (Allan Radcliffe)
I Pleasance Courtyard, 556 6550, until 25 Aug (not 72, 79), 2pm, 2 70—215.
THE TIME STEP Mother of a tragic-comedy no
The monstrous showbiz mother has a time-honoured pedigree in popular culture, from the ambitious Mama
NEXT ISSUE OUT WEDNESDAY 13 AUGUST
Rose in the stage musical Gypsy, to Faye Dunaway’s outrageoust camp turn as Joan Crawford in Mommie Dearest. In Matthew Hurt’s claustrophobic chamber piece, Linda Marlowe plays the latest in a long line of faded, aspirational beauties, middle- aged Cid, who spends her days reminiscing about her brief spell as the darling of the amateur tap circuit.
Daughter Ginger (Marnie Baxter) harbours her own dance ambitions, but Cid is unimpressed with her elaborate routines. ‘How will they know you’re meant to be a mermaid?’ she growls. ‘I told you — green sequinned hot pants!‘ responds her hapless daughter. The pair hatch a plan to dress Ginger's child, Toni, in a sequinned tutu for the girls display at the Seahorse Shopping Centre’s Junior Talent and Variety competition. Only snag is, she's a he . .
While this at times feels a bit like a French and Saunders sketch that ’3 been stretched out to over an hour, there are plenty of amusing, bitter exchanges between the trapped mother and daughter. Marlowe has the pick of the one-liners and, even cast in such a grotesque role, manages to elicit sympathy for Cid and her thwarted ambitions. (Allan Radcliffe)
I Pleasance Courtyard, 556 6550, until 25 Aug (not 73, 20, 24), 6pm, £7 750—27250 (870—27 7).
THE TAILOR OF INVERNESS
Stitching up the 20th century COO.
Matthew Zajac’s father used to tell a story about how to catch a fox. The method is to get the creature in the open then circle it. As long as you complete the circle, the fox will stay grounded. Then you spiral inwards and take your prey.
Zajac does something similar to his father. In The Tar/or ol lnverness, the writer and actor slowly closes in on the Polish-born Zajac senior, giving him enough space to tell his life story. but not so much room that the old man escapes, fox-like, with his evasions.
72 THE LIST FESTIVAL MAGAZINE 7-44 Aug 2008
The one-man show for Dogstar is at once a son's affectionate tribute and an analysis of how history shapes us into the people we are.
Zajac's father was born in a part of Poland that became the Ukraine. was drafted into the armies of both Communist Russia and Nazi Germany and fled across Europe before settling in Glasgow and lnverness. Under the direction of Ben Harrison. Zajac proves a compelling storyteller, capturing the fractured English and have-a-go enthusiasm of his father before weaving himself into an increasingly layered narrative.
FALL
Grime powerful exploration of the consequences of war on
As the truth becomes less and less certain, so the fracturing impact of the war grows more tangible, lending this touching personal story the grand metaphorical weight of 20th century history. (Mark Fisher)
I Assembly Rooms, 623 3030, until 25 (not 77, 78), 2.55pm, 212—213 (210—27 7).
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The dark poetics of Edward Bond have, with the exception of a couple of productions over the last year, been unjustly banished from the British stage, yet live on in the work of writers who have been influenced by him. One such writer is Zinnie Harris, whose stark reflections upon the battle fought for civilisation against the barbaric impulses created by late capitalism brings to mind Bond’s brooding political epic.
We meet Kate (Geraldine Alexander), for whom a car accident sets off a chain of events which lead to the incarceration of a war criminal (Cliff Burnett) from her unknown state’s troubled past. This brings about the loss of her husband and her unwilling entry into the debate about the fate of her country’s tyrannical ruler. She becomes the inadvertent cohort of a new leader (Darrell D’Silva), whose Mandelson-like aide (Paul Hickey) urges a media-fuelled vengeance upon the tyrant, using both Kate and the new leader’s wife (Meg Fraser) as unwitting instruments of violence.
Dominic Hill’s production explores the violence inherent to the ideology of the new world order without losing touch with its personal cost for individuals. Relationships are shattered in favour of a rapacious compulsion for spectacle, here metaphorised in an impending execution. At times there’s a rather 70$ feminist feel to the piece, as women are ordered about, ignored, beaten and sexually assaulted with alarming casualness, while men get erections at the prospect of violence. It might be harder for a post-Thatcher Britain to buy into so purely male a source of civil disruption. So, too, the piece is a little static for its first 20 minutes.
For all that, though, there’s a grim kind of power to it all, and Harris’ facility for astute observations about the capacity of mighty political forces to bleed into our private lives creates some compelling moments. There are some terrific performances too, particularly from Alexander and Fraser as two women for whom all possibility of doing right is banished. The huge vision and ambition of this work make it necessary and important Festival
viewing. (Steve Cramer)
I Traverse Theatre, 228 7404, until 24 Aug, times vary SIG—E I 8 (L‘ 7 7—2 72).