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REVIEW CLASSIC DON JUAN u
Citizens’ Theatre, Glasgow, until Sat 11 Oct
John D is a 21st century mover and shaker. He sets up meetings with celebrities. has his photograph on billboards and indulges in high-profile charity work. He is all ego and. as played by Mark Springer. both charismatic and narcissistic.
There's a touch of Matthew Bourne’s recent Dorian Gray about his early scenes with their cool monochrome interiors and self-regarding media types. and director Jeremy Raison gives a similarly Supernatural spin to Carlo Goldoni's play. Where Dorian Gray stays youthful thanks to an ageing portrait in the attic. John D finds a new lease of life as a time-travelling sex tOurist thanks to a deal with the Devil. In a Life on Mars-ster twist. he is propelled back to the 17308 and takes on the name of Don Juan. Having staked his soul on the impossibility of his ever falling in love — enjoying a couple of sexual romps to prove it — he gets his comeuppance when Neve McIntosh‘S elegant Donna Anna makes him crave something more spiritual.
Goldoni and Wilde have the same moral: pleaSures of the flesh taken to excess lead to death and decay. The problem with the time-leap conceit is it produces a mismatch in social values. Don Juan's behaviour. shocking in 18th century terms. is merely irresponsible today. Because the play is seen through his eyes. the wronged women come across as historical anomalies rather than characters able to comment on today's sexual values. The result is a hard-working production that gets lost in time. (Mark Fisherl
REVIEW ADAPTATION SUNSET SONG one
Seen at His Majesty’s Theatre, Aberdeen. On tour until Sat 4 Oct
It was some time in the early-60S when His Majesty's Theatre. Aberdeen. last produced a play of its own. barring the annual pantomime. To return to the fray with a ten-Strong company and a mainstage low after so long was ambitious but. thanks to an aSSured production by ex-Royal Lyceum director Kenny Ireland. vivacious performances by a cast led by the excellent Hannah Donaldson and a set of picture- postcard landscapes by designer Hayden Griffin. it's a gamble that has paid off.
To open an adaptation of Lewis Grassic Gibbon'S novel — voted Scotland's favourite read in 2005 — in Aberdeen is. of c0urse. playing to the home crowd. The rich Scots language and loving evocation of the Mearns landscape. in all its cruel beauty. speaks powerfully to those in the north east. More deeply. however. it resonates with all of us in a society which, 100 years on. Still feels the repercussions of the end of small-scale farming. the arrival of mechanisation and the drift towards
the cities.
Encapsulating this pull of the modern era is Chris Guthrie, the novel‘s teenage heroine. who is both at the heart of her village community and. through education and disposition. always at one remove from it. Likewise. at the heart of this fluid. ensemble production. Hannah Donaldson has a keen understanding of a character who iS t0ugh, unsentimental and rooted in the landscape and yet also filled with a radiant romanticism. You might miss some of the author‘s rich poetry. but the production does much justice to the Shape of his book. (Mark Fisher)
PREVIEW DANCE. VISUAL ART THE PORCELAIN PROJECT Tramway, Glasgow, Fri 3 & Sat 4 Oct
In the normal run of things, dancers rehearse, set- makers build and eventually the two elements come together. Not so with The Porcelain Project. The latest offering from Belgium’s Needcompany started life as an artwork by choreographer, Grace Ellen Barkey and artist, Lot Lemm.
‘Lot and I created an installation with porcelain objects hung on moving strings,’ explains Barkey. ‘And because we liked it so much, I decided to create a new performance piece and enlarge the installation to fill a full stage. So the start of the Porcelain Project was the porcelain itself.’
Surrounded by literally hundreds of pieces of porcelain, rehearsing without the set was clearly not an option for the performers. Instead, Barkey treated the ceramic shapes ‘like a landscape; a world where six dancers live and the movement gels together with the porcelain.’ Barkey’s inspiration for the piece was not confined to the original installation, however - two other key elements played their parts.
Firstly the music of British composer, Thomas Ades, and in particular his 1999 piece, Asyla which Barkey found held a fairytale quality. Secondly, the mental health issues of some rather famous royals. ‘I wanted to do something about kings,’ says Indonesian-born Barkey. ‘And there are a lot of crazy kings in history - like your George III - and I was fascinated by the almost ridiculous poetry that’s used to describe them. I felt that the poetry and Thomas Ades’ colourful music both worked well against the fragility of the porcelain.’
That fragility is evident at each performance, with Lemm’s handmade objects suffering inevitable breakages. So much so, that Needcompany has now invested in its own kiln to keep up with the demand for fresh porcelain. It’s not just broken china that Barkey deals in, however, but broken hearts.
‘My work is about the failure of love and loving,’ she says. ‘And the absurdness of longing for something perfect, when you know that you always fail. When you have a perfect moment, it will always collapse and be destroyed by another thought or event. That’s something I think can be very comical in humanity and it’s underlying in all my work.’ (Kelly Apter)
‘ Hg? (74". m0.“ THE LIST 87