Theatre
Stage Whispers
I For those of you in despair at the lack of theatre other than pantos and Christmas shows at this time of the year, Whispers has glad tidings. If you look long and hard enough, you’ll find that other kinds of theatre are still out there, if largely buried under all the tinsel and frivolity. Sharman Macdonald, whose The Girl with the Red Hair appeared at the Lyceum a
NEW WORK
DO I MEAN ANYTHING TO
YOU on AM I JUST PASSING BY?
Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, run ended .00
Urban alienation is something so familiar to contemporary experience that we seldom even notice it these days. Yet when in manifests itself in art. there's something compelling about a close focus on single voices articulating the dilemma of their own atomisation. with loneliness and the retreat into subjectivity often
couple of seasons back, is a writer with a distinctive voice, whose work is not as frequently
manifesting an unconscious need for intimacy. Gerard Mclnulty's production -. for Twelve Star. which is accompanied ‘
seen in Scotland as it might be. Over at the Ramshorn in Glasgow, this situation is to be remedied with a production of her early play, When We Were Women, a piece set in wartime Scotland. In it a young woman falls in love with a naval Petty Officer and they marry. But the sailor is obsessed with another woman, and in fact already married, and this moves the action from love story to tragedy. Macdonald’s allusive semi mythic style treads a delicate balance between naturalism and some other ricth poetic form, and often has a hypnotic quality, which one hopes we’ll see here. You can see the piece until Saturday the 2nd of December.
Meanwhile, at the Traverse, the end of the Cubed season, a tremendous piece of small scale theatrical dynamism Whispers hopes to see repeated, there are still more readings of new work, which might well be seen as full scale productions in the future, presented under the title Rehearsal Room 11 by the mighty Stellar Quines. Among them, expatriate Aussie writer Ariadne Cass’s The Girl Who lnsisted she Wasn’t explores the unusual locale of the Fijian Isles, where a young girl reflects upon the native myths of her country while ethnic violence begins to break out around her. Vivian French’s Baby Baby has much to say on the subject of teenage pregnancy, while the third text, a collaborative piece titled Women on the Brink discusses the links between depression and creativity. These are all effectively works in progress, yet if the earlier efforts along these lines by Stellar Quines is anything to go by, they’ll be well worth the admission.
When We Were Women
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82 THE LIST (if) NOV ‘ul [)(x; 2000
by effective. if low key music by indy band The Pastels explores this territory fascinatingly.
In it. four ostensibly characters recite interior monologues of people living in
a city. each manifesting forms of everyday obsession and neurosis. A
film plays. showing the view of some
city street from the window of what
looks like a bar, with people. including
the some of characters we meet
passing and occasionally stopping to
peer in, as if they see someone they know. but can't or won't make contact through the glass. Each
monologue is uttered in a deliberately
flattened out style. somewhat like in the films of Hal Hartley. and they're performed in a stylised but very effective manner by the actors. Carolyn Allen's monologue. which
explores a woman who goes dancing
and tries to ignore slurs on her character by those around her and
Susan Swanwick's tale of a girl in debt
are particularly haunting. If the
portmanteau feel of the piece seems
at times to need organic wholeness and there's something of a work in progress feel. this is still an effective night of theatre. (Steve Cramer)
MUSICAL
CHITTY CHITTY BANG BANG Playhouse, Edinburgh, Sat 2 Dec—Sat 24 Feb 2007
The idea of a mechanism as the star of a show might have seemed a bizarre notion a few generations ago. Only since the Futurists began their ambivalent relationship with technology early last century has art substantially changed. perhaps as a reflection of Our own changing lives. to centre narrative on the non-human. By the time of Roald Dahl's version of Ian Fleming's at times rather frightening story for children as film and theatre. the idea of tecl'inology as entertainment was well in place.
But the question of whether technology is a blessing or curse was raised with this production. which went up in London in 2002. Early on, the stage car was beset with all manner of difficulties. and took so much of director Adrian Noble's attention that many attribute his resignation of the artistic directorship of the RSC to this production. For all that. though. there's been a great deal of acclaim heaped on the show since. and the extravagant praise makes this a pretty irresistible winter warmer. no matter how you feel about kids' stories and cars. With a new cast boasting a number of well-kent Scottish faces in this version. this will be. at the very least. the curiosity of the season. (Steve Cramer)
Review
WEST END TOUR HEROES Theatre Royal, Glasgow, until Sat 2 Dec 00.
Perhaps the thing that haunts most of us about old age is the fear of loneliness. The need to create human bonds, and the fear that poverty and isolation will prevent this is something demonstrated in our own society each time we see an old dear at the supermarket, basket containing three or four carefully purchased items, and wonder if they toddle home with nothing but the telly to talk to. The dilemma is not quite the same for three Great War veterans living out their days in a French military hospital for old crocks in this Gerald Sibleyras West End comedy, translated by Tom Stoppard, but loneliness aches away at their old bones as they banter away at each other, making do with the best company they can get.
It’s August 1959, and 45 years after the start of the great slaughter, the characters fester forgotten in a walled rural garden at the back of their infirmary, their time-filling badinage creating a cute, whimsical kind of humour. Gustave (Christopher Timothy) a curmudgeon to the last, has walloped one of the nuns who cares for him and seems extravagantly indifferent to even his closest companions. Philippe (Art Malik) is troubled by a stone dog in their sunlit folly, which seems to move now and then. In fact it does, at the playful instigation of Gustave. Meanwhile Henri (Michael Jayston) savours the last flickers of an erotic life by ogling the girls and teacher at the local school. They formulate bittersweet plans for escape, at least as far as the copse of trees a few miles distant.
Claire Lovett’s realisation of Thea Sharrock’s original production trundles along with a harmless kind of humour in front of Robert Jones’ pretty design. There’s a touch of Beckett about the disabilities of agoraphobia, bouts of unconsciousness and a gammy leg that makes each character mutually dependant and collectively helpless, and perhaps a stronger savour of David Storey’s beautiful, largely forgotten play Home in their quiet unspoken pathos, but the piece stops short of any big existential themes. Instead, it’s lent innocence by the historical context, where, bypassed by history, just short of the new era about to dawn, the characters dream dreams of flight to an Indochina now lost to France, and about to become an American nightmare. Their historical cuI-de-sac lends charm to the play, but robs it of power. Still, there are three good performances, with Timothy’s grim faced stoic bringing a particular humour to all the whimsy. (Steve Cramer)