THEATRE | Previews
FESTIVAL BUZZCUT Pearce Institute, Glasgow, Wed 5–Sun 9 Apr
Having established a presence in the city centre through the Double Thrills season, the team at Buzzcut returns to Govan’s Pearce Institute for its annual festival of performance. Attracting artists from around the world, the festival continues to offer a platform for work that evades easy definition and provokes thought alongside intense emotions.
Part of its distinctive attitude is the event’s refusal to be
confined by definitions. ‘I believe both performance and live art are experimental ways of exploring how you live in the world and how you express that to other people,’ says Daisy Douglas, a member of the core team. ‘But it’s not necessarily helpful to define it in specific terms,’ adds Karl Taylor. ‘This debate is so constant and it often takes away from the art.’ Instead, Taylor continues, by naming itself as a ‘performance
festival’, Buzzcut ‘allows itself to be as large as possible, to allow anyone to access it. Performance can be anything.’ And with 51 artists presenting work over the five days, everything from choreography through monologues to the very-difficult- to-label will be presented. Familiar local artists, such as FK Alexander and Gillian Lees are returning, next to performers from Latin America and Europe. Eclecticism is the essence of the programme’s curation.
Buzzcut has gained an international reputation for both the diversity of talent on display and its approach to curation, with the emphasis on conversation, free thought and inclusion. With the Side Burns thread setting aside time and space for conversations about the work (‘it’s like a more formalised space to share ideas in a focused way,’ explains Taylor), Buzzcut attempts to break down the suspicions around experimental performance and provides a comprehensive look at the state of the art. (Gareth K Vile)
SOLO TRAGEDY CORIOLANUS VANISHES Tron Theatre, Glasgow, Fri 14–Sat 22 Apr FUTURISTIC DRAMA GIRL IN THE MACHINE Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, Wed 5–Sat 22 Apr
After the success of dark ensemble comedy International Waters, Fire Exit’s latest project heralds director and writer David Leddy’s return to performing after 12 years. Having built a reputation for productions that scramble genres, Coriolanus Vanishes is a solo show that maintains Leddy’s ambitious sense of scale. ‘The title references two things,’ he says.
‘Shakespeare’s Coriolanus but also this amazing book by David King, The Commissar Vanishes, about leaders who were painted out of photographs after falling out with Stalin. It’s about the way that petty personal relationships get projected onto national politics.’ Leddy uses these influences to examine the intersection between the personal and the political.
As the protagonist tries to piece together the events that led to him experiencing three recent deaths, Leddy’s script ponders the relationship between ‘humanism and militarism’. Following Coriolanus’ biography, he examines ‘the ways in which parents can damage children who grow up to be messy adults and then project that mess onto those around them.’
As always, Leddy’s commitment is to a serious theatre that examines ideas in both a personal and political context. (Gareth K Vile)
100 THE LIST 1 Apr–31 May 2017
Having been presented in progress as part of last year’s Traverse Fringe line-up, the premiere of Girl in the Machine has Stef Smith returning to the venue after her recent success at The Royal Court. Exploring the human quest for happiness, it considers how technological advances might impact on this perpetual endeavour.
‘When I first started writing Girl in the Machine, I was much more interested in it being a metaphor than a prediction,’ says the Olivier Award- winning playwright. ‘But in the past 12 months that I’ve been working on the play, the world has fundamentally changed or, at very least, the problems we face in creating a peaceful future are more explicit. So, it felt necessary to comment on what the future might hold as much as it being a metaphor for now.’ Although she is ‘loathe to give too much
away’, Smith says that she ‘looks at addiction, connection, faith and how we deal with a world that increasingly feels relentless in its accumulative crises.’ Combining a science-fiction context with a resonant story of love, Girl in the Machine is a reminder of Smith’s ability to reconcile sophisticated theatricality and emotive storytelling. (Gareth K Vile)
AUTOBIOGRAPHY CAREFUL Macrobert Arts Centre, Stirling, Sat 1 Apr, then touring until Sat 27 May
Horse McDonald has been a commanding presence in Scottish music for over 25 years, but Careful is not a simple evening with a singer-songwriter. ‘I very rarely sing in the play,’ she says. Although it follows her journey from childhood to ‘present day when my wife and I attended the Scottish Parliament on the day of the equal marriage vote in 2014,’ Careful examines wider themes and common experiences.
‘I’ve been at great pains to point out it’s not a “gay play”, it just so happens that I am,’ she continues. ‘But the human message is that we are all affected.’ With a pair of chairs at the centre of the stage (the ‘mum’ and ‘dad’ seats), the monologue guides the audience through Horse’s life, including some moments she describes as ‘dark and difficult: but the key message is that it got better!’ After success at the Fringe, Horse and her
director Maggie Kinloch decided to tour the show with an additional Q&A session, which will include a little more music. This allows the audience a chance to respond to the events of Careful: despite being a personal story, it covers an exciting period of history and draws out emotions that demand conversation. (Gareth K Vile)