Festival Theatre
Telephone Booking Fringe 0131 226 0000 International Festival 0131 473 2000 Book Festival 0845 373 5888 Art Festival 07500 461 332 ACCIDENTAL NOSTALGIA The past is a foreign country music ●●●●●
Underneath this bizarre, eccentric and hypnotic little operetta lies so many of the themes of the old 90s-style postmodernism that it really ought not to work. Memory, subjectivity, selfhood and identity: the whole shebang smacks of the Generation X apolitical aesthetic of the self that began to wear thin a decade ago. Yet it contrives to mesmerise you like
a snake swaying to a charmer’s pipe. This is perhaps because of the astonishing dynamism and showmanship of its lead, Cynthia Hopkins, whose pitch perfect tones and soaring clarity of voice put one a little in mind of Patsy Cline, and the amazingly accomplished band who seem to mix rockabilly, alternative country and something like blues with a dexterity born of precision. The story starts with Hopkins as a
bluestocking faux academic with a metallic manner, and moves back and forth through the inevitable American abused childhood to her present as a Western refugee in Morocco. On the way there’s a certain scepticism about a series of neurological and psychoanalytic theories, and some brilliant uses of multimedia projection to illustrate these. And somewhere between the quirky, playful frippery and a darker misanthropic escapism, there’s a tremendous night out. (Steve Cramer) ■ Traverse Theatre, 228 1404, until 30 Aug (not 24), 10.30pm, £16–£18 (£11–£12).
ORPHANS Rivetting exploration of urban fear ●●●●●
Dennis Kelly’s Orphans opens with a tableau that might have been culled from a conventional TV thriller. An ordinary couple, Helen and Danny, about to eat dinner, sit staring up at a man drenched in blood standing in their doorway. The man, it turns out, is not a stranger, but Helen’s brother, Danny, who claims to have intervened in a violent incident on the estate. As Liam’s dubious story unfolds, and
he invokes Asians and ‘dirty old men with beards’ Helen’s attempts to protect him become ever more desperate. There’s a tangible reason for her concern: Liam is her only
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surviving relative (the pair grew up in care) and, well, family is everything, right?
The tension is sustained throughout by Kelly’s deceptively realistic dialogue, the characters’ stumbling, increasingly frantic inarticulacy creating a strange, staccato poetry. Occasional relief comes from moments of ink- black comedy, as when a particularly overwrought scene is interrupted by a character’s incongruously cheerful mobile ringtone going off.
Kelly’s work raises pertinent questions about the nature of fear, particularly the threat of the vague, undefined ‘other’, and the desperate need to feel safe within the family unit. Garance Marneur’s set reflects this dichotomy – decorated with natty feature wallpaper and proudly festooned with family photos, the structures are bridged by railings and barbed wire.
The play never feels schematic, though, and the action is rivetting, largely thanks to the intensity of the performances. Claire-Louise Cordwell convincingly sustains Helen’s desperation and anxiety, while Jonathan McGuinness as Danny comes into his own in the latter scenes, quietly, devastatingly evoking the horror of what has just occurred. And Joe Armstrong gives a subtly detailed, ultimately chilling performance in the role of Liam. (Allan Radcliffe) ■ Traverse Theatre, 228 1404, until 30 Aug (not 24), times vary, £16–£18 (£11–£12).
A-TEAM – THE MUSICAL DIY nostalgia for fans of the original ●●●●●
There’s a cute, homespun feel to the cardboard props, hand-held backdrops and plywood vehicles of Joss Bennathan’s production, from a playful bit of tongue-in-cheek 1980s nostalgia by Gareth Kane. That said, it might need more material to fully take wing. Formatted like an episode of the
programme – in which a female shopkeeper in a small town is menaced by a local thug and his sons, then rescued by the A-Team – the piece intersperses the action with
knowing observation, slapstick and song. But humour that points up the original show’s lack of PC credentials – the idea of no one dying whatever the violence of the events depicted and the inevitable construction of armoured vehicles from implausible bric-a-brac – is simply telling us what we already know. Not all the performances are of the
same quality, but John Dorney’s Boss Hogg figure is wittily observed and well sung, and fitting all of the action on a tiny stage with poor sightlines is something of an achievement. This is one for fans of the show, who’ll appreciate its characters’ in-jokes, but not for all tastes. (Steve Cramer) ■ Gilded Balloon Teviot, 622 6552, until 31 Aug, 5.30pm, £9–£10 (£8–£9).
THE GIRLS OF SLENDER MEANS Ambitious, imaginative adaptation ●●●●●
A new adaptation of a never-before staged novel by Muriel Spark, The Girls of Slender Means is set (mostly) in that strange limbo period between VE and VJ Day. The war had ended, but hadn’t quite ended really, and the young women living in the May of Teck Club, a women’s hostelry ‘providing lodging for young gentlewomen of slender means obliged to seek employment in London’ are suddenly faced with the future. Time is fragmented rather than the backbone of a narrative: these are women living in a Blitz-enforced spirit of carpe diem; lovers go off to fight and die, and are replaced, and grieving may happen when it’s all over.
The famous adaptation of Spark’s best-known book, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, filleted characters and a rudiment of plot from the novel. What Judith Adams’ script tries to do here is recreate the texture, art and whole of the book, and this is possibly what leaves this production feeling rather oversaturated. Visually it’s stunning: the set is composed of several
movable transparent screens on which flickering projections can enhance, contradict or haunt the action. The poetry recited by doomed innocent Joanna Childe (a lovely, memorable performance by Melody Grove) provides another layer of metatextual commentary on the action.
However, there’s often a clamour of voices telling different stories at once, and a lot to look at, and while this is clearly a deliberate move to try and capture the way the novel skips between different perspectives, it leaves the audience, like the girls, rather frantically trying to seize the moment. Because of this, the one climactic flash of horror on which the story pivots is rather rushed over.
Perhaps this adaptation is best valued as a
companion piece to the novel, or an artistic response, rather than a stand-alone theatre work. However, for all its flaws, the ambition, imagination, and some lovely comic performances, make it well worth checking out. (Kirstin Innes) ■ Assembly Rooms, 623 3030, until 31 Aug (not 24), 4.20pm, £15–£18 (£14–£16).
58 THE LIST FESTIVAL MAGAZINE 20–27 Aug 2009