FESTIVAL THEATRE MACHINES FOR LIVING
BUILDING BLOCKS
A new physical theatre show is attempting to explode some of the myths surrounding British architecture. Yasmin Sulaiman fi nds out more
I t’s become commonplace to denigrate the Brutalist 1960s tower blocks that now characterise the British urban skyline. But Let Slip, a theatre group formed by graduates from the Jacques Lecoq Theatre School in Paris, are seeking to combat these architectural stereotypes in their new Fringe show, Machines for Living.
Company
now, people director David Ralfe says, ‘Lots of these buildings are very either unpopular because think they’re ugly or because they are associated with “problem estates”, crime and poverty. When we started looking into the stories behind these buildings, we discovered that they had been designed by Brutalist architects who were convinced they would create social utopia.’
The story focuses on two architects who move into a tower block they’ve designed, which has already created a buzz within the architectural community. The company have also been painstaking interviewing research,
their
in
‘ITS LEGACY IS STILL GOING STRONG’
Brutalist architects and historians.
it’s
But
far academic ‘We also played to a group of teenagers, many of whom lived in tower blocks themselves,’ Ralfe says. ‘They said the show really resonated with their experiences. There was something very poetic about making the show at a theatre in the middle of an estate surrounded by tower blocks!’ from a dry treatise, promising all the comic you might irreverence expect Lecoq- trained artists. And though Brutalist architecture may have fallen out of favour, its legacy is still going strong. ‘The UK faces a housing shortage now as it did then,’ says Ralfe, ‘and The Shard proves that bombastic architecture never goes out of fashion; concrete is just replaced by glass and steel.’
from
Machines for Living, Zoo, 662 6892, 5–27 Aug (not 14, 21), £10 (£8). Previews 3 & 4 Aug, £5.
MATERIAL BOY Mark Fisher talks to a writer/performer who’s hoping to turn a stage disaster into a Fringe success
It’s a classic case of triumphing in the face of disaster. In 2007, Peter Michael Marino’s adaptation of the Madonna movie Desperately Seeking Susan opened in London’s West End and, after devastating reviews, crawled through 13 days before closing, saying goodbye to a £4m investment. Now Marino is playing the Fringe with a one-man show about what went wrong. Called Desperately Seeking the Exit, a phrase taken from one of his least favourable reviews, is a warts- and-all insight into what makes a l op. ‘More people have seen my show about the show than actually saw the show,’ laughs Marino, whose budget this time is a more modest $10,000.
Directed by the Fringe First-winning
John Clancy, the show is neither therapy nor revenge, but a comic vision of how so many people can work together to get something so spectacularly wrong. ‘I talk about going to therapy because of the horrible experience, but I never wanted it to smack of one-man-showdom,’ he says. ‘A lot of one-man shows are people reliving some kind of experience, whether it be cancer or a divorce, but to me, this is a really great story. I’ve told so many little stories over the years about my experience that it seemed ridiculous not to put it all into a one-hour show.’
Reasons for the failure of the musical are many, ranging from cultural differences to artistic misjudgements and inexperience. Five years on, Marino is able to laugh the whole experience off, allowing us to enjoy the schadenfreude. He, meanwhile, has become a more sympathetic person. ‘I don’t mind ribbing Spider-Man on Broadway, but I have found myself keeping quiet about certain projects that are being developed in the West End. I’m not going to share it, because there’s real people involved.’ But does he still hold a torch for his musical? ‘Of course! I wrote it.’ ■ Laughing Horse @ Edinburgh City Football Club, 556 9628, 2–26 (not 13), 6pm, free.
74 THE LIST 2–9 Aug 2012