list.co.uk/festival Reviews | FESTIVAL THEATRE
MADE FOR EACH OTHER Can we really be honest with the ones we love? ●●●●● ECONOMY OF THOUGHT The banking crisis meets a thoughtful critique ●●●●●
THE SURRENDER Personal confession with humour and depth ●●●●●
Made for Each Other is another play returning to the Fringe after a successful 2012 run. A one-man show about Alzheimer’s and gay marriage, it has John Fico take on four roles. Throughout the show, he restlessly jumps between the ‘fag over 50’ science teacher Vincent, and ‘fairy over 40’ nurse Jerry, as well as Vincent’s Alzheimer’s-suffering mother, and Jerry’s dead grandfather (who now resides inside Jerry’s head). The two men meet in the dementia ward, where
Jerry works and Vincent is visiting his mother. By their third date, Jerry proposes – but Vincent doesn’t dare to admit that he’s already showing signs of the disease. Several gay issues are covered, such as coming out and male body image, as well as more universal questions of genetics, family, and keeping secrets from the ones we love. It comes so close to being a sweet love story, but the problem is that Vincent and Jerry’s love is unconvincing. And it’s hard to be happy for a couple when it doesn’t seem that they’ll be happy themselves. (Kirsty Logan) ■ Sweet Grassmarket, 243 3596, until 25 Aug (not 20), 5.20pm, £8.
Grinning bankers bet on who in a crowd of protesters will scramble for a banknote as it flutters towards them. A young journalist exploits family connections to get her first big scoop. An ambitious economist sees a move into green energy as a means of furthering her career. Everyone’s on the make in Patrick McFadden’s solid morality tale set in the world of high finance. But don’t expect an hour of empty banker-bashing: Odd Rituals’ thoughtful play, part comedy and part critique, is gratifyingly nuanced. Nobody emerges unsullied by the grime of greed as its storylines expand into fractured personal relationships and fraught questions of integrity.
Katharine Davenport stands out as the tormented Amanda, torn between loyalty to her sister (a volatile Rose O’Loughlin) and to her unpleasant banking colleagues, led by the obnoxious Reece, played with gleeful swagger by Jonny McPherson. Things move slowly at times, especially in some
lengthy and frequent set changes, and the plot direction sometimes seems a little shaky. But it’s a strong piece of work nevertheless. (David Kettle) ■ Assembly George Square, 623 3030, until 26 Aug (not 12, 19), 2.40pm, £12–£14 (£10–£12).
Although its subject matter might be on the more risqué side of the Fringe, The Surrender is far from mere titillation, and is bold and direct from its first words. The story of a former ballerina who finds liberation in sexual extremes, it comes fresh from a sold out run at Spain’s National Theatre, and its sexual premise unfolds into a story of self-discovery. Adapted from Toni Bentley’s memoir, The Surrender
exposes the heroine’s needs and presents them as part of her journey to find both satisfaction and God. She is unapologetic about her submissive desires – only rarely do her descriptions stray into the erotic – but accepts them as part of her life. Pleasure is presented as the greatest good, both intimate and generous. The glamour of many other sexual memoirs is replaced here with serious thoughts on God’s absence and sexual politics while the production itself has the atmosphere of a sexual ritual.
Actor Isabelle Stoffel captures the intensity of the memoir through a confident performance. Less spectacular than the synopsis suggests, The Surrender is a solid, honest confessional. (Gareth K Vile) ■ Gilded Balloon Teviot, 622 6552, until 26 Aug, 1.30pm, £12–£14 (£10–£12).
LONG LIVE THE LITTLE KNIFE Sharp, self-aware study of truth and fakery from David Leddy and Fire Exit ●●●●●
‘Metanarrative! Get it up ya!’ yells the triumphant Liz, one half of a brash couple of counterfeit handbag dealers turned art forgers. David Leddy’s Long Live the Little Knife is a quick, clever, chaotic uncovering of what we mean by truth, framed as a violent underworld crime caper. It leaves you questioning just how much you should believe about anything, especially when it’s on stage. Liz and Jim are two married crooks, pursuing fame and fortune through forgery and manipulation of the art world’s free market economy, their own relationship stained by failed pregnancies, sadistic gang threats and self-destructive optimism. It’s claimed to be verbatim theatre, based on an encounter between Leddy and two wild drunks in an Edinburgh pub. But as Liz and Jim point out, it’s hard to know what makes a story apparently ‘based on true events’ any truer than any other story.
This is a production obsessed with stopping you from
suspending your disbelief: we are told repeatedly that ‘this bit isn’t part of the show’, accents and character traits swap around, and all technical effects are generated in plain view of the audience. Leddy, the site-specific supremo, never lets you forget that you are in a theatre, watching a play, and asking what that means.
This masterful work about art forgery is really a play about theatre and, in a phrase that echoes through the dialogue, ‘a life dedicated to the artistry of swindle’. The writing is magnificently bright and cruel, a Jackson Pollock-splatter of sharp ideas, bloody brush strokes and linguistic duplicity. But, despite its constant attempts to unseat you, the story as it unfolds is disturbing, uplifting and compelling in its central irony that art, in all its fakery, is what brings us closest to the truth. (Charlotte Runcie) ■ Traverse Theatre, 228 1404, until 25 Aug (n ot 19), times vary, £19 (£14).
15–26 Aug 2013 THE LIST FESTIVAL 81
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