Theatre
Re: Treading the Boards
I Whispers feels the Scottish theatre deserves a bit of congratulation now and then, and particularly at the moment. It testifies perhaps to the strength of the current theatre that outside the unusual times of the festival, two five-star reviews have never before appeared in The List theatre section in the seven years under his watch. Is the theatre in good shape for the appearance of the National? You bet your Watusi! Now is the best time to get out there.
I At such times. it might behove us to remember that greatest of Scottish theatre figures. John McGrath. from whom the younger Whispers learned so much. and was so inspired. There's a chance
for some retrospective reflection on
the great man. and his relevance to today's political theatre. in two new books. to be launched in Londoo on 5 April. Freedom '8 Pioneer: John MCGram's Work in Theatre, Film and Televiern, is edited by David Bradby and Susanna Capon. and introduced by Richard Eyre. John McGrath: Plays for England. with a forward by Michael Biiiington, will be available in bookshops very soon. Anyone interested both in Scotland's theatrical heritage and its future is bound to be interested. I Meanwhile, the bright young things of Theatre Cryptic are off across the Irish Sea to help Cork to celebrate its current mantle of European Capital of Culture, 2005. Their especially commissioned piece, Apocalypse, incorporates music, theatre and multimedia, in true Cryptic style, to tell the story of The Book of Revelations. The awesome skills of Mark O’Keefe, the principal trumpet for the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, will feature in the piece. Whispers wonders whether we’ll be treated to a version here in Scotland at some point.
92 THE LIST '
STARLIGHT EXPRESS Playhouse. Edinburgh. until Sat 7 May
Review
ANNA KARENINA Royal Lyceum Theatre. Edinburgh, until Sat 16 Apr .0000
A big scary monster of a complex thing, is life. We can take many roads through it, but perhaps forgiveness and understanding of humanity, for all its flaws is, if not the easiest, then the best way. This is what radiates from every scene of John Clifford’s outstanding adaptation of Tolstoy's classic.
In it, as you may know, we meet the casually promiscuous and feckless Oblonsky (Paul Blair) and his long-suffering wife Dolly (Cara Kelly) who makes for a stark contrast with the title character (Raquel Cassidy). Her infidelity with the handsome young Count Vronsky (Jamie Lee) leads to a destructive and hypocritical ostracism from the society around her, and takes a terrible toll on her husband (Kevin McMonagle). Meanwhile Levin (Liam Brennan), the real anchor of the plot, reflecting most cogently the trauma of modernisation in late 19th century Russia, as well as a delicate and quietly intense love story, seeks the affection of Kitty (Louise Collins), but she, like Anna, is smitten by Vronsky.
Muriel Romanes‘ production amounts to a breathtaking liberation of Clifford’s highly theatrical text, which simultaneously flouts the novel‘s naturalistic conventions and enshrines its eloquent beauty. Francis O’Connor’s set, a wooden interior of many beautifully used doors, surrounded by a forest, which eventually intrudes, like the primality of the characters, upon the ordered domesticity of the household, is conceptually stunning. If you know nothing else about the novel, you‘ll know about the train, so I should add, too, that this is stunningly effective. 80, too is the ensemble performance. In the circumstances, it might seem churlish to pick out particular performances, but Brennan’s Levin, a man constantly struggling to do the right thing in terms of both his crassly exploitative society and his romantic life, is beautifully observed and comically nuanced. And you need a well trained, if you will, actress to play Anna, and in this respect the production also delivers handsomely with Cassidy’s passionate and fatalistic wife subtly delivered with a fascinating physicality. Purists about the novel might occasionally grumble, but this is a beautiful and elegiac evening of theatre.
(Steve Cramer)
Miami or THE ROSE BOUQUET
Citizens' Theatre. Glasgow, Thu 14 Apr—Sat 7 May
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