THE TALENTED MR RIPLEY
Dundee Rep Theatre. Dundee. Wed 8-Sat 25 Mar
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Review
BLOOD WEDDING Citizens' Theatre, Glasgow, until Sat 4 Mar 0.
At times it must be admitted that the critical industry misapplies the term . ‘primal‘. Where it can be applied though, is in the forces that drive the ' : ~l »- ’ v . '~ :
central characters in Lorca’s Blood Wedding. For them, sexuality is only
part of the dark and fated forces that govern us, residing somewhere in the . . . .
very soil beneath our feet, nourished as it is by the blood of our forebears, : ' " ‘ ~ " z' i
and obeying no social propriety. ‘ ' w .
Jeremy Raison’s production at the Citz uses the appropriately earthy :‘ l9: : poetry of Ted Hughes as its starting point. In it, we see an oedipally-fixated -.' l: . .. groom (Mark Wood) preparing for marriage with a verdant bride (Lorna : I 2. .-'v t . Craig) in the hills. His doting mother (Cara Kelly) is monomanically 2w :- : ' -;. ' rah -v ' obsessed with death, having seen the rest of her kin slaughtered in the z» ,1 w -- .t t :4 r:, . knife wielding macho world of the Spanish rural peasantry. But Leonardo ' wl ~ 1, '_ z .' 'v ' :' l . (lain Robertson) has had an earlier fling with the bride, and his obsession "w: '. aw- '_ ‘« ' with her leads to catastrophe. .1" (Ly .
That‘s the naturalistic account, but the iceberg on which so many productions of this rich, poetic text have foundered is its transition into its symbolic, almost surreal latter half, where dark pagan entities appear to dictate the black auguries that ultimately overwhelm the characters. Having built a perfect base camp, Raison’s production loses its way, like so many before it, 100 feet up the mountain. Tom McGovern’s cross-dressing moon is inadvertently risible, while the peasant woman signifying death also has an unfortunate touch of the three stooges about her. Nor do designer Guiseppe Di Lorio‘s giant glass doors backed by grey drapes add anything but a sense of ‘why’?’ to the first half. Amid a cast emitting a vague sense of panic, Kelly is outstanding, adding nuance and perfect timing to her grief-fixated mother, while Jimmy Chisholm’s father of the bride, equally fixated, but this time with property, is also strong and believable. But not all of the performances were of this quality. What’s so damnably frustrating is that Raison‘s concept of the play seems strong and imaginative, failing not as a whole, but on certain key moments. Perhaps the text is just a beautiful siren on the rocks, now awaiting its next victim. (Steve Cramer)
\‘i ERA FEAR OF FLAT THREE Byre Theatre, St Andrews, Wed 8—Sat 11 Mar
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Theatre
Staqe Wlispers
I The opening of the NTS was ironically titled for Whispers over the last few days, for in seeing so many versions of other people's homes. he was deprived of his. But it was worth all the journeying. As a strategy, it’s hard to fault the idea of presenting ten pieces of theatre throughout the country over the same few days. There is a democratic spirit, as well as a freewheeling creativity to this group of artists, who have all to some degree found new ways of defining theatre as both a physical space and a mindset.
A great many memories will be left of this event, for which artistic director chy Featherstone can be thanked, and if making theatre an accessible rather than elitist event was the purpose, then the whole program might be called a triumph. Far better this than some great wheezing epic under a proscenium arch in Glasgow or Edinburgh as a way of greeting the people of Scotland. The rough edges around theatre as a live event represent much of its appeal, and these little vignettes show the transformative power of the theatre, especially when reasonably funded.
As Whispers digests the plurality of styles and techniques he’s been exposed to, a couple of images will live long in the mind. Perhaps most of all Cath Whitefield’s dancing dervish of a 1970s stepmother- witch in the superb East Lothian event sums up the rough energy of the whole program. Gill Robertson of Catherine Wheels deserves praise for this show, and Whispers will eat his uncle if we don’t see it again. So too, the triumph over adversity that was the Dumfries event, where Graham Eatough of Suspect Culture should be buying his two actors drinks to this day for their sterling efforts on his behalf. Overall, the whole program ran between interesting and triumphant, so three cheers for the NTS. Now let’s get down to the serious stuff of the programme to come.
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