list.co.uk/festival Reviews | FESTIVAL THEATRE
LOVE SONG TO LAVENDER MENACE LGBTQ+ history without sentimentality or too much tragedy ●●●●●
Providing a whistlestop tour of the history of Edinburgh’s LGBT community, Love Song to Lavender Menace (directed by Ros Philips) is a romantic comedy that eschews any kind of schmaltz. James Ley’s script, and Matthew McVarish and Pierce Reid’s performances, understand that moments of passion shine brighter when contrasted with a hint of darkness.
Set in an LGBT bookshop in the 80s (the Lavender Menace of the title), the play repudiates the tendency of some popular queer art to focus on trauma and misery and tells a story brimming with joy. It doesn’t, however, present a sanitised view of the gay community’s experience in early 80s Edinburgh. The show is punctuated by monologues from an unnamed gay man, married to a woman, terrified to come out. But, Lavender Menace refuses to let the era be defined entirely by suffering.
The most tear-inducing scenes involve the protagonists
reminiscing on how being part of a supportive LGBT community was liberating and life-affirming. Though there is a film of nostalgia (Jimmy Somerville’s falsetto provides the play’s refrain), it never obscures what’s underneath and instead simply serves to emphasise the sense of a captured moment in time. Lavender Menace expertly provides its audience with a small
dose of the ecstasy that the bookshops patrons must have felt on discovering knowledge previously denied to them. It is an ode to the power of solidarity and a tribute not just to the bookshop that inspired it but LGBT spaces the world over. (Liam Hainey) ■ Summerhall, until 26 Aug (not 20), 12.55pm, £12 (£10).
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OTOSOTR Gripping and revelatory show ●●●●●
URBAN DEATH Classic horror gets contemporary update ●●●●● IT’S NOT A SPRINT Marathon show misses opportunities ●●●●●
With an indecipherable acronym for a title and an esoteric slice of history framing its narrative, this hardly counts as one of the Fringe’s most immediately approachable shows. But be not afraid: OTOSOTR is well worth approaching.
Anatoliy Ogay’s solo drama with music about Soviet Koreans deported to Kazakhstan who later join the communist struggle against Hitler’s armies is a passionate, compelling, stylish show. Propelled along by Ogay’s magnetic performance, it’s a work that ultimately moves beyond its historical specifics to become a moving, captivating interrogation of family love, cultural identity and technology.
Zombie Joe’s Underground Theatre Group’s nasty shocker is a cult institution in its native Los Angeles – and with the show’s superb mix of slick technical polish and grimy, macabre subject matter, you can see why. Yes, there are plenty of scares to keep the adrenalin pumping. But Urban Death is so much more than that. It unfolds as a series of wordless, sometimes virtually actionless tableaux, offering peeks into bizarre, sinister worlds – from the downright bloody to the quietly menacing. There’s over-the-top grand guignol, but there are contemporary, urban horrors too; the dead-eyed stares of damaged prostitutes, or a grinning father getting too familiar with his daughter.
Ogay recounts the tale of his beloved half-deaf Technically, the show is faultless: performers creep
grandfather, shipped with thousands of others from a section of Korea that found itself within Soviet borders to landlocked, arid central Asia. He volunteers for brutal Soviet army training on the promise of a better life in Europe, only to find himself the victim of harrowing ordeals and brutal Nazi attacks.
Performing behind and with an electronic keyboard, Ogay, OTOSOTR is a gripping, revelatory show. Listen hard and you’ll even get to hear what its title stands for. (David Kettle) ■ Underbelly Cowgate, until 26 Aug, 6.40pm, £10–£11 (£9–£10).
imperceptibly into their disjointed positions in the pitch black to shock when the lights go up, and the sometimes glimmering lighting ensures our imagination fills in the full horror of what is half glimpsed.
But despite its well-drilled professionalism, there’s a raw, dirty edge to Urban Death and a gleeful desire to push the audience into uncomfortable territory that gets under the skin in a deeply unsettling way. This is a brave, sophisticated show – as darkly funny as it is creepily appalling. (David Kettle) ■ Sweet Grassmarket, until 26 Aug, 9.30pm, £8.50 (£6.50).
Grace Chapman presents a one-woman show about Maddy, a 30-year-old who decides to run a marathon, and the life decisions she must come to terms with over those 26.2 gruelling miles. Chapman is alone onstage in running gear with
a helium balloon tied to her waist, bobbing up and down as she mimics the effort of running a marathon. Maddy is accompanied on her journey by a disembodied voice with whom she verbally spars, the physicality of running and talking adding extra desperation to her reflections on her life. Chapman has an affable stage presence, and the down-to-earth nature of the story allows her to probe into darker territory when it comes to Maddy’s mother’s health and her genetic clock.
However, the unique framing of the marathon run is not used to full advantage: save for Chapman’s constant movement it is barely explored. Little is done with sound design, and the focus on numbers – 30 years old and 26.2 miles – becomes confusing rather than powerful at certain points. The piece is saved through Chapman’s charisma rather than the uniqueness of the narrative framework, something that seems a missed opportunity. (Sean Greenhorn) ■ Pleasance Dome, until 26 Aug (not 21), 1.30pm, £10–£11 (£8.50–£10).
15–27 Aug 2018 THE LIST FESTIVAL 85