Theatre
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Gilmorehill. Glasgow. Sat 6-Sun 7 Nov
I Anyone who's ever put off
Review
A WHISTLE at THE DARK Citizens‘ Theatre. Glasgow. until Sat 13 Nov .00.
You can‘t choose your family. Why? Because the discourse of the patriarchal family unit would never allow such nonconformist freedom. But just think, without a socially imposed code of loyalty and respect for those who just so happen to have similar DNA, would we not be freer, if not happier individuals? A rather cold and theoretical approach to our loved ones perhaps, but it’s one way to look at and understand the tragedy in Tom Murphy‘s play.
This intellectual yet highly emotional work from one of Ireland’s leading playwrights concerns a group of Irish brothers eager to pummel the face of anyone that reminds them of their shortfalls in their newfound home of Coventry. Led by small time pimp Harry (Cal MacAninch) and overseen by the patriarch himself (Ciaran McIntyre), the Carney boys are intent on bringing the young, impressionable Des (Packy Lee) round to their way of thinking, while eldest son Michael (Dermot Kerrigan) advocates a pacifist approach. Michael is married to long suffering English wife Betty (Lydia Baksh) who despairs at her unwanted, rowdy houseguests and her confused and broken husband. Underneath the men's testosterone-fuelled anger are issues of race and belonging, and a subconscious struggle to be proud of a country, a religion and a family that has betrayed them.
Here performed in a realistically drab 1960s living room set, this naturalistic piece can be seen purely as the tragic story of a dysfunctional family in a volatile era. In portraying exactly this without going too overboard on symbolic theatrical techniques, Roxana Silbert’s production draws attention to the bigger theoretical issues. That we are products of the society we live in is communicated through some measured and watchable performances, particularly Kerrigan and MacAninch. Playing the more complex characters, both maintain a believable balance of anger and detachment and we understand but empathise with neither. The hurtful words spat out by McIntyre’s impressive Dada repulse in all the right ways. This production requires some real concentration through a fairly continuous barrage of emotional outbursts, but you get the feeling it couldn't really be done any other way. Enjoyable may not quite be the right word, but a cathartic night of powerful theatre all the same. (Meg Watson)
zEno DEGREES AND DRIFTING Traverse Theatre. Edinburgh. Wed 10-Sat 13 Nov.
some more important matter, like the filling out of endless forms that contemporary society requires, for a spot of housework, will know how it feels. So too, will folk who‘d rather hang by one arm off the Forth Road Bridge than spend hours cleaning. One way or another, there's something hypnotic and slightly sinister about the world of cleaning in our house-proud society. Less a practical measure for the preservation of hygiene than a galloping collective bourgeois neurosis in our culture, it's about time the How Clean is Your House? society came to terms with its issues, which have more to do with status anxiety than dust.
Ian Cameron and Tim Licata seem keenly aware of this fact, if their new piece A Clean Sweep is anything to go by. In it, two men do anything to avoid cleaning up, as men are wont to, but encounter every kind of broom and brush imaginable in their adventures. These two performers have been devising this piece for a good while now, and finally seeing it in full flow and on tour should be a good night out. These performers possess a broad range of theatre skills, all of which promise to be utilised in this surreal little comedy. The piece will entail clowning, dance and many a visual set piece, and is suitable for children. Its tour dates are in our listings section. I A more earnest matter altogether. but also the product of collective neurosis, is our sornety's OUSBSSIUH With iaw. IS it decent to disobey a manifestly unjust law in a SOCiety that is creating increasing legal infringements on our lives in the name of national seetirity'? It's a contemporahy. but very old Question, as an upcoming production of Hectra. rlirectetl by Shona McKee at the Rainshorn might demonstrate. This version of Sophocles' tragedy was produced by Frank MCGLiinness. and might be particularly timeiy at the moment. You can see it from 10—20 November.
J.
A Clean Sweep
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