Theatre
REVIEW NEW PLAY OFFSHORE
Seen at Citzens‘ Theatre, Glasgow. On tour throughout Scotland until Sat 1 Nov 000
It’s easy to imagine that the countryside exists without money. With all that fresh air, isn’t cash just a distraction? Of course, just as the wilderness is actually the result of centuries of industrial exploitation, so the rural population needs to earn a living as much as anyone.
It’s the fragile nature of this economy that provides the dynamic for Alan Wilkins’ Offshore. Set in a west coast beauty spot, it’s about a community with only three months of the year to make a living, getting by for the most part on minimum-wage jobs with no prospects. To the incomers Frida and Jock, these locals, running a ferry and a beer franchise, seem to value friendship above commercial gain, apparently squandering what little
88 THE LIST 2—16 Oct 2008
opportunity they have for profit.
The scene is set for a culture-clash drama in which the consumerist city-types rub up against the less acquisitive country folk. Except, in this Birds of Paradise production directed by Morven Gregor, Wilkins plays against expectations by spinning out an old-school thriller in which nobody is exactly who they say they are.
It becomes as gripping and as incredible as an Agatha Christie and, at 70 minutes, breezin watchable for that. But the more the playwright springs his surprises, the further away he moves from his initial vision of a community with a complex relationship to money and the closer he comes to the nihilistic idea that even the good guys have their price. The result is a play that rings less true as it goes on. (Mark Fisher)
I Please see offshore.brrdsof par‘ad/setlieatre.cor/k for tour details
REVIEW NEW PlAY FLEETO 0000
they don't get used much.
www.list.co.uk/theatre
REVIEW MULTIMEDIA PLAY CHERRY BLOSSOM
Traverse, Edinburgh, until Sat 11 Oct .0.
Catherine Grosvenor's Cherry Blossom is an impasSiont-3d attempt to represent the experience of Poles migrating to the West. while Lorne Campbell's direction ensures that the play — performed in English and Polish -— is understanr‘lable to speakers of both languages. But it's Leo Warner and Mark Grimmer lof Black Watch and Dorian Grayi upon whose highly technological. Cluedo board-like set the audience ultimately depend to guide them through the intertWining stories: the fictional tale of Grazyna. who leaves her family in Poland to work in an Edinburgh meat factory. and the real- life tragedy of Robert Dziekanski. who died at the hands of police at Vancouver Airport in October 2007.
A iornt venture between the Traverse and Teatr Polski. the play's four actors perform each of the characters in turn in both languages. lt's testament to their versatility and Grosvenor's strong cliaracterisation that this works so effectively. Gra/yna's story i8 touching too: her confusion on arrival in Edinburgh neatly gives way to the precarious confidence she feels once settled in.
But it's in the story of Robert D/iekanski that Cherry Blossom misses its mark. The narrative suffers from taking a backseat to the rest of the play never quite matcning the liveliness of Gra/yna's tale. Despite this — and the faltering subtitles — Cherry Blossom is a compelling piece of theatre. and an exciting example of cross-border artistic collaboration. iYasmin Sulaimani
E i
Seen at Tron Theatre, Glasgow. On tour until Sat 18 Oct
No doubt it's F/eeto's origins as a piece of lunchtime theatre in A Play. a Pie and a Pint that mean this revrval by Glasgow's Vamp is stripped back and elemental. The set amounts to nothing more than a table and a couple of chairs — and even
But it's not Just economy that dictates Paddy Cunneen's production of his ft) minute play. It’s also his desire to tell a modern—day story of inner-city knife crime in the manner of Greek tragedy. Avoiding drab naturalism. he leans on his story's mythic elements of revenge and reconciliation to justify his heightened urban poetry and straight-from-the-heart monologues. This could easily be a pretentious indulgence. but the combination of Cunneen’s tough streetwise language. four equally no~nonsense performances and the way the story of an everyday knife murder reaches out into society at large gives the production a compelling energy.
As Mackie. Jordan McCurrach gives a superb performance that shows how a likeable kid from a deprived background can be drawn into criminality almost by accident. His horror at committing a half-intended murder — goaded on by Neil Leiper's frightening Ken/re — is genuine and his attempt to make peace with Alison Peebles as the bereaved mother is touching without being sentimental.
It is the play's Willingness to go beyond a simple knives-are-bad message and to argue that knife crime has causes and consequences in society as a whole that makes it as gripping for a teenage audience as it is for adults. (Mark Fisher)