Theatre
Stage Whispers
I Whispers is sure you all know the feeling, and it gets more powerful as the winter months draw on. The one comfortable place to be is your pit, and as the weather gets colder, that superhuman effort it takes to haul your watusi into the cold needs to be even more powerful. So upstairs at the Tion, in the intimate little Changing House theatre, there’s an event in a warm, dark room that you might well empathise with.
lain Crichton Smith’s Lazybed was first produced nearly a decade ago at the Traverse, and tells the story of a man who’s taken to his bed, and is determined never to rise from it again. Those around him urge, cajole and threaten, but the central character Murdo isn’t budging. Yet there’s more to his recumbent posture than pure idleness. Murdo rails against modern life, its hypocrisies and inanities. His is a depression that has its foundations not in his head, but in large part in the world around him. A promising and still relatively new company with a penchant for comedy, Rhymes with Purple, are putting this one together, and you can see it from Tuesday the 17th until Saturday the 21 st of October.
Just down the road at the Citz, you can catch Greeks, Geeks and Party Myths, a devised piece by the bouncy and enthusiastic Young Company. It’s a piece about a teenage party which gets badly out of control, whose aftermath is as messy as any you’ve witnessed. Staged in the circle studio, it’s designed to make the audience feel that they are fellow party
animals. This might bring back a
few uneasy memories for some of us older folks. You can see it at the Citizens’ from Thursday the 19th until Saturday the 21st October.
Greeks, Geeks and Party Myths
80 THE LIST 1E} Oct—2 No;
SCOTTISH PREMIERE
AN HOUR AND A HALF LATE
King’s Theatre, Edinburgh, Tue 24-Sat 28 Oct
My father once gave me a piece of advice. the wisdom of which magnifies as the years pass. ‘Son.’ he said. ‘never try to get the last word in an argument with a woman — it'll last the rest of your life.‘ It's a dilemma that Mel Smith's character faces in his adaptation of Jean Dell and Gerald Sibleyras' Parisian hit. touring for the first time to Scotland.
Smith. whose recent portrayal of Winston Churchill at the Fringe drew praise. plays a recently retired stockbroker. intent on spending his blissful prime (he's chucked it in early) with his ostensibly happy wife. But an offhand remark leads to a row that gathers a hideous impetus all its own and the painful comedy snowballs to the point of questioning not just their marriage. but their bourgeois vision of the good life itself. To compound this. they’re late for a dinner party.
If this promises little more profound than an amusing domestic comedy. it might show some acute observations of the battle of the genders along the way. Any male who has wondered at the female capacity to count imagined slights for months. if not years. finally to be trotted out at an opponune moment with historical documentation that'd give AJP Taylor some pause for a bit of ‘you what?“ might find this interesting. But so. too. might any woman who's busy COunting those slights . . . (Steve Cramer)
NEW WORK ONE HOUR BEFORE SUNRISE Theatre Workshop, Edinburgh, until Sat 14 Oct 000
Over 400 people of 35 different nationalities remain held without charge or trial at the infamous Guantenamo Bay. We're just beginning to question the involvement of our government. whereas for some nations torture has long been an established part of their so-called justice systems. Asylum seeker Ghazi Hussein bravely tells his stOry thrOugh his new play with Theatre Workshop director Robert Rae.
Based on Hussein, Palestinian poet Moneer (Okan Yahsil is unjustly imprisoned and brutally tortured without trial. Present day Moneer (Omar Mostafa) tells his story to a theatre director (Jim McSharry) and flashbacks follow his experiences through his lengthy incarceration with inmates. unlikely friend Drugs (Nabil Shabanl and the malevolent Wiseman (Andrew Dallmeyer)
George Tarbuck's effective lighting design creates a dark prison with no natural light. In it. we see humanity at its lowest ebb. exploring coping mechanisms from drug induced escapism to insanity and hope. celebrating the resilience of the human spirit in extreme conditions. As Aeschylus wrote. “men in exile feed on dreams of hope". and for these men it's all they have. It's powerful subject matter but the flashbacks are a tad contrived and once the play has established their daily horror it has nowhere to go. losing momentum. However. it's a frightening reminder of what human beings and even our own government are capable of.
(Greer Ogstonl
Review NEW WORK
JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS Gilmorehill G12, Glasgow, Thu 2— Fri hlov, then touring—COCO 7
There’s something about myth that short circuits history and defines an immediacy almost regardless of the historical moment you’re in. These are stories told and retold through the ages that capture defining human dilemmas about love, war, family and a host of other preoccupations of our existence which recur in most cultures. This version of a story of a journey fraught with adventure from Visible Fictions sets itself in the world of the ancients and before, but, partially because of a couple of tremendously engaging performances, finds a contemporary feel that might well have the ship that sails the perilous oceans of a misty past making its way up Lothian Road.
In it, we see echoes of so much subsequent drama that it’s hard to number the moments that evoke other great plays that allude to myth. From Hamlet to Oedipus Rex and on to Macbeth the tale flows on. Telling the story of Jason, whose name, it is emphasised, means “Healer”, and his band of misfits, all played by a succession of action man figures, and their journey beyond the edge of the world to recover the golden fleece, there is no let up in the narrative tension. To avenge his usurping uncle, who has killed his father, Jason and the boys do battle with sea monsters, giant bronze birds and alarming ambulatory rocks, and all this is lightened by some sweet bathetic humour.
Douglas Irvine’s production gets the tone just right to appeal to children, and does enough to bring out the child in far older folk. Robin People’s design features an oxcart that smoothly morphs into a ship, a throne, the bank of a river and a multitude of other functions with admirable dexterity. And at the centre, two actors, Simon Donaldson and Tim Settle swap roles deftly in a multitude of personas, gently ad libbing, rapping with the audience, and engaging in all the physical business demanded with admirable aplomb. This is a pleasing night of entertainment that will leave you wanting more. (Steve Cramer)