THEATRE LIST
THE TRAVERSE THEATRE (BI-226 2633
NEW WORK FROM SCOTLAND ENGLAND
GERMANY& USSR
MARCH -AUGUSTI988
July 16—30, 7.30pm British Premiere THE CONOUEST OF THE SOUTH POLE By Manfred Karge Translated by Tinch Minter and Anthony Vivis
Anarchic new comedy by the author of MAN TO MAN 7 1 _‘ . 71-. Tickets: £4.50/E2.50 (U840, NUS, OAP, Young Scot) YEARS Grassmarket. Edinburgh r’ifr‘frnrrse
THIRD EYE CENTRE
Premiere
C.J.B.S. ‘disastrous PEACE’
A man and a woman living in close quarters.
They have never acknowledged each other. They have never spoken. They have never touched. They loathe each other. What it circumstance forces them to unravel their prejudice and tear?
“A pungent brew of clumsiness, fragility, desire, dreams, death, war and survival.’
Designed and directed by Barnaby Stone (ex Ralf Ralf). Fri 15th July, 9.30pm. Sat 16th July, 7.30pm. Tickets $23.50/$22.50.
ACCESS/VlSA/TELEPHONE/ POSTAL BOOKINGS BOX OFFICE:|041 332 7521
(Closed Monday)
350 SAUCHIEHALL STREET GLASGOW
MR BOLFRY
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THEATRE
12—31 July at 8.05pm THE FABULOUS FIVE PAST EIGHTS
3 Week Cabaret Season Programmes change nightly FEA'I‘L'RING: Steve Nallon. Craig Ferguson. Arnold Brown, Alexander Sisters, Zydeco Ceilidh Band. MeCIusky Brothers. Terry Neason. Johnny Beattie, Jack Milroy. and many, many more.
Also Gong Nights on Fridays at 11.05pm
TR ON THEATRE, 63 Trongate, Glasgow Tel: 041 552 4267
C .6. ’Z.
N U
JAMES BRIDIE
24 JUNE-16 JULY Mon—Sat 7.45 pm Tickets from £2.50 ‘ Matinee 9 July 3.15 pm (all seats _
031 -229 9697
REVIEWS
MR BOLFRY
Mr Boltry, Royal Lyceum, Edinburgh Like the Citizens' recent staging of Bridie’s DrAngelus, the Lyceum‘s production of Mr Bollry by the same author illustrates well why Bridie’s
l work has been so unlashionable in
contemporary British theatre. The work looks self-consciously stagy, the drama relies on rhetoric rather than action and the characters are so specific to theirtime and place, the plays don't easily lend themselvesto updaflng.
Director Ian Wooldridge is therefore probably wise to present his production at the Lyceum as a straightforward period piece which allows the strengths of Bridie's writing to come through. Mr Bollry is a slow, sometimes tedious, play, but it‘s clearly-structured and well-made and underneath the fantasy/comedy element, touches on some serious points about the nature and existence of evil.
Two soldiers are billeted with a minister of the ‘wee free' church in the Highlands during the Second World War. They and the minister's devil- may-care neice, an employee at the Ministry at Interference, find the minister’s kirk illogical, outmoded and inappropriate. They conspire to summon up the devil to hear his side at the argument and he duly appears asdapper Mr Bollry.
He embroils the minister in theological debate and Victor Greene (Mr Bollry) and James Cairncross (the minister) make lively sparring partners. The argument states the uncomfortable truth that evil exists within even the most saintly (and the minister is much less than a saint). Significantlytoo, it isthe devil, notthe man of God, who prophesies how quickly we will all target the horrors that are being perpetrated in the war, thus lorseeing, and allowing tor, human weakness.
But, having introduced this cold wedge of reality, Bridle makes nothing of it. At the end of the play we are back in the comfortable world of the
minister's dining room where his wile sums up the events of the previous evening as so much unfathomable mystery. It‘s as though evil is little more than supernatural nonsense and as though it‘s consequences were no more than the work at the kelpies.
SHADOWING THE CONQUEROR
PeterJukes‘ Shadowing the Conquerer is a challenging and illuminating play that turns on the improbable meeting between two people to weave together a host of ideas.
The meeting is between Mary Ellis, a sharp, angry young photographer who uses her skill to try and catch the other side of the powerful, and the ultimate powerbroker, Alexanderthe Great. Ostensibly opposites, there is something similar in theirdesire to capture the world around them and, sensing this, he invites herto accompany him on his last campaign. She accepts the challenge and there begins a fantastical voyage during which the two struggle to gain the upperhand.
As the play charts theirjourney, it opens up questions about the extent to which the West is still in the grip of imperial thinking and the degree to which, through images, modern media still carries out its own lorm ot arrogant domination. At the same time it broadens into a retlection on the nature of power and on our perception of the world in terms at opposites. All its themes fuse when, in India, Mary finally matches Alexander with the true gentle opposite of his thinking, a transformation reflected in the images her photographs create.
It is a fascinating, imaginative play, often beautifully written, which strangely manages to be at once extraordinarily theatrical and rather undramatic. It is a little too cerebral for its own good, but the themes it tackles are important and in Steve Unwin’s production it is given sinewy, subtle pertormances by Siobhan Redmond and Matthew Scurlield. (Saran Hemming)
22 The List 8- 21 July 1988