{THEATRE} Fringe previews
I, THE DICTATOR Radical one-man show reimagines Charlie Chaplin
Teatro Replika – a small fringe theatre in Madrid – is not the most obvious place to catch up with Polish company Teatr Wiczy, whose one-man show about Charlie Chaplin, I, the Dictator, plays Edinburgh throughout the Fringe. It makes more sense, however, when one discovers that the Spanish venue’s director is the Polish theatre artist Jaroslaw Bielski. In Wiczy’s monodrama we find actor Krystian Wieczynski playing a radically reimagined Chaplin during the making of his anti-Nazi classic The Great Dictator. Consequently, the play is strongly engaged with matters of history, politics and personal psychology.
We find Chaplin filming his movie in the face of the
indifference and, even, hostility of a largely isolationist American establishment, which does not want an English actor – no matter how great – dragging the United States into Europe’s war against fascism. This real-life situation created in the mind of writer/director Romuald Wicza-Pokojski is a fictional scenario in which a representative of the Hitler regime inveigles his way into Chaplin’s dressing room in Hollywood and, playing upon the actor’s isolation, attempts to buy him off with Nazi cash.
‘This show could be entitled Loneliness,’ says Wicza- Pokojski. ‘Chaplin is really alone, and Hitler appears like his twin brother, who has taken away his face, with its little moustache.’
The psychological aspect of the piece, and its very fictional basis, are reflected in Wieczynski’s performance. His Chaplin speaks (in English) with a strong Polish accent. He tap dances as he talks. He reflects his weaknesses and temptations in nudity and semi-nudity, and exorcises his ego in moments of sexual ecstasy. It is, in other words, a Chaplin who is about as far from Robert Downey Jr’s interpretation as one could imagine. (Mark Brown) ■ New Town Theatre, 220 0143, 6–28 Aug (not 15), 2pm, £10–£12 (£8–£10). Previews 4 & 5 Aug, £5.
E N R O H T A L L U E V E T S
MAN OF VALOUR One-man action movie from acclaimed company LIBERACE: LIVE FROM HEAVEN Sequinned piano man plays at the Pearly Gates
AN INSTINCT FOR KINDNESS True-life tale that has lessons for all of us
L A V I T S E F
It’s a scenario familiar to many. A lonely office worker tries to escape his humdrum existence, living out a fantasy world of swashbuckling make-believe and mind-blowing heroism. ‘Everyone can relate to it,’ says actor and co-writer Paul Reid. ‘It’s about a guy in a job that doesn’t entertain him, so he tries to entertain himself. The show’s really about what happens when fact and fiction unravel and collide.’ Dubbed a ‘one man action movie’, Man Of Valour
certainly has a good pedigree, coming as it does from Irish company The Corn Exchange, who brought the wonderfully absurd Freefall to the Fringe. Edinburgh virgin Reid hopes the show’s loose style of commedia dell’arte, accompanied by projections, epic film music and slick lighting tricks, will entice audiences.
‘As an audience member I love it when you’re left to create something, and with this the audience are really helping to create what they see with their own imagination. ‘It’s like an action adventure movie brought to the theatre – hopefully the audience will enjoy the ride.’ (Anna Millar) ■ Traverse, 228 1404, 5–14 Aug (not 8), times vary, £15–£17 (£11–£12). Preview 4 Aug, £11 (£6).
74 THE LIST 4–11 Aug 2011
In cabaret, what turns a concert into theatre is the hook that hangs the tunes together. Hanging squirming from this particular hook is Liberace (reincarnated in Bobby Crush) as he plays for his immortal soul. We join the sequined piano man after his death in 1987 performing to persuade St Peter (and the audience) that he deserves admittance upstairs by playing his songs, more recent tracks and a medley conjured from audience suggestions. Crush (Opportunity Knocks favourite and writer of Orville’s ‘I Wish I Could Fly’) aims to invest Mr Showmanship with as much fabulousness as one would expect as he parades ‘a number of incredible costumes, each one more eye-catching than the one that went before’. To counter Nietzsche’s pronouncement that ‘in heaven all the interesting people are missing’, Crush believes The King of Bling would ‘make [the afterlife] as fabulous and extravagant as his life was on earth’ by partying with Rock Hudson, Judy Garland and Mae West. The result promises to be as inimitable as The Glitter Man himself and will no doubt be as camp as, well, as camp as Liberace. (Suzanne Black). ■ Assembly George Square, 623 3030, 6–28 Aug, 6.25pm, £13–£14 (£12–£13). Previews until 5 Aug, £8.
With An Instinct For Kindness, solo performer Chris Larner tells first-hand of accompanying his ex-wife Allyson to the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland to undergo an assisted suicide.
‘She was vibrant, she was funny, she was a strong woman,’ says Larner of Allyson, ‘which made her diagnosis of multiple sclerosis so much sadder.’ When Larner returned from Switzerland, he found himself relating excerpts of a tale rich in poignancy and irony. ‘Allyson was an actor and a very good theatre teacher,’ he says, ‘and she believed very much that theatre has a political responsibility, that it can transform both performer and audience and be a power for good.’
While Larner says the piece isn’t an exercise in outright advocacy, his experience has led him to believe a change of UK law is required concerning assisted suicide. ‘The real outrage is that there are so many people who feel so desperate, who aren’t getting the help they obviously need from society, he says.’ This is Larner and Allyson’s story, but it’s part of a
wider debate that affects all of us. (David Pollock) ■ Pleasance Dome, 556 6550, 6–29 Aug (not 10, 17), 4.10pm, £9–£10 (£8–£9). Previews until 5 Aug, £5.