list.co.uk/theatre Previews | THEATRE
S E N O J S A L G U O D
REVIVAL ANNA WEISS Tron Theatre, Glasgow, Wed 27–Sat 30 Mar
REVIVAL APRIL IN PARIS Perth Theatre, Perth, Fri 15–Sat 30 Mar; Tron Theatre, Glasgow, Wed 3–Sat 13 Apr CLASSICAL COMEDY UN PETIT MOLIÈRE Tom Fleming Centre, Edinburgh, Tue 9–Fri 12 Apr
Ambiguity ripples around deep inside Anna Weiss, Mike Cullen’s intense play about false memory syndrome. Last seen in Scotland at the Traverse in 1997, the play won plaudits from all who saw it. Among the play’s fans was Scott Cadenhead, who is now behind a brief revival of the play by his Rekindle Theatre at the Tron. ‘I was blown away,’ says Cadenhead. ‘I have
never been so emotionally drained by watching a play. I remember sitting in the auditorium at the end and thinking, “Wow, I hope these people are OK. Shouldn’t we go and check they are alright?” Which is obviously ridiculous!’ Anna Weiss concerns a hypnotherapist who helps
a young woman find ‘lost’ memories of abuse by her father. It is the ensuing confrontation between daughter and father – and Weiss herself – that draws the audience in so deeply. ‘I want people watching to not be sure what is
going on,’ says Cadenhead, who will be playing the father. Which is a big ask given that he also feels he has to be certain in himself of what his character did – or didn’t – do. ‘It is a really challenging thing to take on, definitely the most challenging work that we have done.’ (Thom Dibdin)
It’s been 21 years since acclaimed playwright John Godber wrote April in Paris, his bittersweet comedy about Bet and Al, a frustrated married couple from Hull who win a trip to the French capital. But the play still feels relevant today.
‘I got a real sense in Hull, where I still live, that
opportunities for people were becoming fewer and farther between,’ Godber says of why he wrote the play. ‘If you walked into any newsagent’s, most of the magazines for women were offering you the opportunity to win a life experience. People were struggling, recession had hit – especially in East Yorkshire in the building trade. So it became quite clear to me that there was an obsession with winning opportunities. I think we’re still there.’ In March, Perth Theatre and the Tron will launch
a new production of April in Paris. According to director and designer Kenny Miller, ‘At the end of the day, it’s about things that we all know about. It’s about our relationships and how they break down. Bet and Al get so used to each other, so they go in opposite directions and don’t really notice until it’s too late. They do still love each other – they just don’t know how to communicate.’ (Yasmin Sulaiman)
As artistic director of Lung Ha’s Theatre Company, Maria Oller has set out to achieve the Edinburgh- based group’s stated objective of becoming ‘a leading theatre company for people with learning disabilities, in Scotland and internationally’. One way in which she has done this is by staging classical works, such as short plays by Chekhov and the ancient Greek tragedy Antigone by Sophocles.
In a very different – but still classical – vein, she
now presents Un Petit Molière, adaptations of two short Molière comedies (The Seductive Countess and The Flying Doctor) by Morna Pearson. ‘I felt that, after doing tragedy, Molière comedies would be a nice relief,’ Oller says. ‘I read Molière’s big plays,’ she continues. ‘Then
I thought, “We have to do his comedy our way.” He wrote a lot of one-act plays, when he was playwright to the King. We’ve chosen two of these, which we are performing as plays within a play.’
In the production, Lung Ha’s actors will perform the roles of Molière’s own company. ‘This,’ Oller explains, ‘is to get the style and the atmosphere of what theatre at that time was about, because so much of western comedy is based upon what Molière did back then.’ (Mark Brown)
NEW WORK QUIZ SHOW Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, Fri 29 Mar to Sat 20 Apr
Rob Drummond thinks back to when he was a young boy, and he remembers his dad enjoying a steady diet of television quiz shows. They sucked him in too, and fed the inquisitive, exploring nature that would go on to mould his theatre craft. In a young but exciting career, the Glasgow-based performer has learned to be a professional wrestler in Wrestling and coerced audience members to shoot him in the face with a pistol during the dramatised magic show Bullet Catch.
‘Quiz Show looks at what knowledge is and what truth is, and if truth is ever really possible given the subjective nature of things,’ he says of his new show at the Traverse, a more traditional ensemble work that he’s written but won’t be appearing in, directed by the Trav’s associate director Hamish Pirie. ‘Truth is the ultimate goal, and the more science tells us about the world the closer we get to that, but magic and wrestling also tell us a lot about truth and reality. Wrestling is staged, but as I found out to my cost it’s also real – you do fall, you do hurt yourself. Just as the quiz show format is fake, but there’s a certain reality within that.’
In part-homage to Robert Redford’s film of the same name, Quiz Show pits a new challenger against a reigning champion, although Drummond won’t reveal whether or how it plays with form like his earlier works. ‘I don’t really like the word “twist” ,’ he says, ‘because it suggests a kind of hokey trick. I prefer subverting what you think you’re watching. It’s a weird reference, but the early work of M Night Shyamalan was good for that – after a while you realise it’s a completely different genre of film you’re seeing. But then, I think all good plays are thrillers in one way or another, because they’ll have audiences constantly second-guessing what it is they’re watching.’ (David Pollock)
21 Mar–18 Apr 2013 THE LIST 99
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