Festival Theatre NO CHILD . . . One-woman performance schools the school system ●●●●●
Actress Nilaja Sun plays actress and drama teacher Miss Sun and her class of students as they put on the play Our Country’s Good, which is about convicts putting on a play. The logistics of one woman flitting from grizzled custodian to idealistic teacher to a plethora of hardened, rebellious and disenfranchised teens with no costume changes and at a foolish speed are dizzying, yet Sun’s tour de force performance(s) give this production its strength. As a damning critique of the New
York City school authorities it is powerful without preaching, sidestepping easy solutions and relying on an emotional evocation of the situation to tell the whole story. Sun cannot be praised highly enough for the skill and diversity of her chameleon-like turn. Vaulting the gap between under-privileged Bronx teenagers and Edinburgh’s white middle-class audience, under the direction of Hal Brooks, she illuminates a script that is nuanced in its emotional reach rather than histrionic or clichéd, making this one lesson it is a pleasure to learn. (Suzanne Black) ■ Assembly Rooms, 623 3030, until 30 Aug, 2.20pm, £11–£12 (£10–£11).
ROADKILL Relentlessly bleak, necessary drama about sex trafficking ●●●●●
Given that the 12 or so people on the bus from the Traverse presumably know what the play we’re going to see is about, there’s something terrible about the way we indulge the Nigerian teenager who just happens to have boarded the bus with us, asking excited questions about this new city 46 THE LIST 26 Aug–9 Sep 2010
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she’s going to live in. We’re about to watch her be sold into prostitution and raped. And we all know it. Because she’s an actor, though, because this is a play, nobody says anything. Instead we smile then look away. Roadkill, as directed by Cora Bissett,
makes it impossible for us to look away for long. We’re ushered into the claustrophobic basement of a New Town flat where we’re stuck with Adeola as the men come and go (usually represented by projections on the walls or relentless litanies of ‘field reports’ on the sex worker review site Punternet). At times this proceeds with the subtlety of a sledgehammer: it doesn’t need to as the fine performances sear into the brain. We’re handed information afterwards about how to help. Let’s. (Kirstin Innes) ■ Traverse Theatre, 228 1404, until 29 Aug, times vary, £17–£19 (£12–£13).
SMILER Heartfelt story of friendship over disability ●●●●● Richard Fry is already on stage when the audience enters: he’s sitting in a
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chair, hugging a pillow and smiling as he listens to Nena’s ‘99 Red Balloons’. Indeed, he smiles continuously throughout the show: as he speaks of meeting Smiler, a disabled friend; as he shares stories of them getting drunk and high together; as he talks about the traumatic experiences each of them have encountered in their lives. It’s a deeply affecting smile: it signifies a man who has seen that you can either crumble under the weight of life’s difficulties, or smile bravely and carry on regardless. It’s this smile that brings tears to the eyes of many audience members at the end of the show. There is one small but significant flaw with Smiler: the whole show is told in rhyming couplets, which creates a slight distance from the story being told. This is a minor grumble, though: Fry’s performance is at once uplifting and heartbreaking, and what could easily have been a show of tired worthiness never comes close. (Niki Boyle) ■ Gilded Balloon Teviot, 622 6552, until 30 Aug, 12.15pm, £9–£10 (£8–£9).
TEENAGE RIOT Call to reconnect with our younger selves ●●●●●
What’s going through the mind of a teenager? Lovebites? Career prospects? Facebook? Dieting? All of the above, apparently. ‘My shrink doesn’t understand me!’ whines one teenager, in a comedy section where we get an emo blast of adolescent moans. ‘I am too creative for this world!’ sobs another.
This production’s strength lies in its ability to show teenagers in a non-patronising but honest way – we see all their laughable angst; their hormonal frustration, their cossetted fears and frantic (and yes, sometimes annoying) energy. Written and directed by Alexander Devriendt with additional script from the eight excellent teen actors, it’s a brave, arresting and dark frenzy of action, mostly filmed live inside a wooden shed onstage, and projected outwards for the audience to watch.
But rather than rolling our eyes at them, (what the hell would they know about life?) we are left feeling they may have a point – albeit an unsettling, possibly
insulting and extreme one. ‘You’re not an example,’ they shout at the crowd, addressing the adults. ‘You’re a warning!’ Their view of adulthood is one where the mums are also dieting, couples are divorcing and people are still whining, but doing nothing about it. Feeding us a dizzying stream of images from inside their impressive TARDIS-like hut, (hands grope under American Apparel clothes, marker pen is graffitied on walls to a soundtrack of Fuck Buttons, and sickening parent voiceovers bombard from above), their anarchy reminds us of the teen ideals that they seem convinced we have all lost.
Ontroerend Goed, the Flemish theatre group who have won Fringe Firsts for the past three years, have lost none of their ability to challenge and surprise. If last year’s Internal was a boundary-licking flirt around speed-dating, this year it’s a call to reconnect with our younger selves. As one teen prays: ‘Hope when I’m 80 I’m still as mad as a 14-year-old.’ (Claire Sawers) ■ Traverse Theatre, 228 1404, until 28 Aug, times vary, £17–£19 (£12–£13).