Theatre
D A E H N E D A C T T O C S
PREVIEW TRAGICOMEDY THE MEMORY OF WATER CCA, Glasgow, Thu 14 & Fri 15 Jul
A good many plays have exploited the emotional state of people at funerals over the years, but few so well as Shelagh Stephenson in her West End hit of 1996. Not since David Storey’s rather more earnest In Celebration has the existential crisis brought about by the death of someone close to you been so thoroughly explored. The play portrays the lives of three daughters of a
mother whose strong views on the role of women have influenced each of her three offspring in different ways. From an elder sister who has accepted her mother’s vision of a woman as a bourgeois housewife, to a middle sister who has embraced the emotionally unsatisfying life of a modern professional, and on to a wild and
promiscuous younger sibling, each plays out a conflict left to them by their mother’s values.
Surprisingly, though, the piece is primarily comic. ‘It has those kinds of universal themes; loss, relationships, memory, and the kinds of mess that occur in life to prevent things from being the way we want them to be, but it’s also very funny,’ explains director Bill Wright. ‘There’s grieving, but there’s also this thing about still being alive for the people there – some of the situations these occasions throw up are farcical and absurd. We celebrate the fact that we’re not the ones being buried. And some of the humour is about cruelty. Families are cruellest, but the quickest to make up. They give you the hardest time, but they also give you the most support.’
This production by a new company, Catdog, might
well prove a warmly entertaining night of grief. (Steve Cramer)
REVIEW ENSEMBLE COMEDY STEEL MAGNOLIAS Tron Theatre, Glasgow, until Sat 10 Jul ●●●●●
Robert Harling’s comedy-drama about a group of lifelong female friends in Louisiana has enjoyed endless revivals since its mid-80s premiere, largely thanks to the popularity of the film adaptation, which provided plumb roles for such Hollywood grande dames as Shirley MacLaine and Sally Field. As the play’s action is restricted to a single setting (Truvy’s beauty parlour), where the women come to share their deepest darkest secrets, much of its success depends on the ensemble’s ability to don a Southern accent and deliver Harling’s amusing, sensitively observed script with the required panache.
At times this version, by Upstage Theatre Productions, feels a little under-rehearsed, with the result that attention is diverted from the action, to the dryers and wash basins in the furthest corners of the busy set. Broad humour is derived from the cantankerous rantings of good- hearted grump Ouiser (Toni Frutin), while Carmen Pieraccini brings the right balance of sweetness and headstrong spirit to the role of young mother Shelby, whose medical battles provide the play’s through- line. Harling’s script (and this production) stays just on the right side of mawkish sentimentality, and there’s a nice rapport among the cast, so that the emotional final scene is actually quite moving. (Allan Radcliffe)
REVIEW OUTDOOR THEATRE KING LEAR Botanic Gardens, Glasgow, until Sat 10 Jul ●●●●●
As is so often the case with outdoor performances, an audience’s ultimate enjoyment of this first show in Bard in the Botanics’ 2010 season might be more a matter of projection than performance. While some of the parts require – and are afforded – a degree of delicacy, those actors who can make themselves heard above the buses and boy racers rolling past on Great Western Road outside might find they live longer in the minds of the audience.
Bard in the Botanics has nine years’ experience of doing this, however, and the abilities of director Gordon Barr’s nine-strong cast range from the efficient to the excellent. George Docherty lends a powerful figure and a basso gravitas to the role of Lear himself, even as he roams the land in insanity at the betrayal of his daughters and a thunderstorm is drummed out against the sheet metal backdrop. Alan Steele’s Earl of Gloucester, cruelly blinded after being framed for treason, also claims an unlikely moment of comedy when he unknowingly ropes his son, Kirk Bage’s exiled Edgar, into assisting with a suicide attempt. Despite the challenges of the space, Beth Marshall’s Goneril gives a performance of
measured, regal precision, while Steven Rae manages to elevate the villainous Edmund, Gloucester’s illegitimate son, beyond the merely dastardly. Throughout, there is an air of encouraging professionalism rather than novelty, although perhaps only those with the best positions at the front of the audience will find themselves immersed enough for each mounting act of tragedy in the final act to ring true. (David Pollock)
86 THE LIST 8–22 Jul 2010