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THE POST SHOW Broad comedy in the name of high art ●●●●● BLACK IS THE COLOR OF MY VOICE Musical biography of Nina Simone ●●●●●
The painful tradition of the post-show discussion is ripe for deconstruction: playing on the vanity of the artists, it invariably becomes a dreary round of predictable questions and self-satisfied responses. Under the guise of the Shallow Scream Ensemble, The Berserker Residents have fun sending up the pretension of the serious artist, without delving deeper into the processes of creation.
The audience are guided into the auditorium with the performance already in progress: the tail end of a Sam Shepherd-style conflict of masculinity which has apparently been running for the previous six hours. Cutting quickly to the post-show discussion, the show proper reveals the emotional traumas, egotism and neuroses that drive the production. The company display a real skill in improvising to the audience's questions, before seguing into a series of scenes that expose the actors' neediness and vulnerability. Aiming for broad comedy rather than insightful takes on the theatre industry, The Post Show is more slapstick than satire, and entertains through the absurdity of the characters and their desperate attempts to wrest meaning from their mundane anxieties. (Gareth K Vile) ■ Assembly George Square, 623 3030, until 25 Aug (not 11), 9.40pm, £12–£15.
A black woman who bears a disconcerting resemblance to Nina Simone is having what we would now call a detox. No booze, fags or phone, just her, an imaginary piano and a handy suitcase full of props from her life. Via a conversation with her father, Apphia Campbell telescopes the pianist- singer-civil rights activist's career into an intense hour of character, exposition and highlights from the Simone song book.
It is a tribute to the strength of her performance
that, despite the whirring air con, sub-student theatre set and Poundland musical budget, this show glows. As the pace picks up and Campbell transforms from a little girl determined to be the first black classical pianist to the political firebrand who plays the devil's music with the black power movement's lyrics, it gets better and better. But a real piano, surely the heart of Simone’s story and as important in her personal struggle for racial equality as Martin Luther King, was sorely missed. If only the team behind Janis Joplin: Full Tilt could
be unleashed on this material, it would make the perfect companion piece. As it is, it overcomes the odds to be extremely good. (Anna Burnside) ■ Gilded Balloon Teviot, 622 6552, until 25 Aug (not 13), 2.20pm, £9.50-£10 (£8.50-£9).
HOW TO ACHIEVE REDEMPTION AS A SCOT THROUGH THE MEDIUM OF BRAVEHEART Contemplation on what it means to be a Scot ●●●●●
Rachael Clerke is in need of redemption. You see, a couple of years ago, she denied ever being a Scot. She was a ashamed of the tartan, the kilts, the coos – until an encounter with a Turkish friend changed her perception of how others view Scots.
Now, she’s on a quest for redemption, and she’s taking the audience with her. Part-lecture (there’s a slideshow – but it’s a good one), part-comedy, part-theatrical performance, Clerke is quirky, sparky and energetic. She’s out to find answers, starting with a number of figures that she thinks might help her feel more akin to her home country. Donald Trump doesn’t quite do it, nor does Alex Salmond, but the answer might just lie in a certain historically inaccurate film about Scotland.
This is an unpredictable show from a fearless young performer. Not content with rolling down a sand dune dressed as Trump, or boogying along to the Proclaimers as Salmond, she manages to raise a cheer from a fan at Ibrox when she attempts to recreate that famous Braveheart scene using just a bike and a lot of gusto. (Jen Bowden) ■ Underbelly, Cowgate, 0844 545 8252, until 25 Aug (not 12), 4.10pm, £10-£11 (£9-£10).
CONFIRMATION Man wrestles with self ●●●●●
Chris Thorpe's enthusiasm for battling demons has led him to this: sweating, growling, shouting, whipping his microphone lead around the stage like a tormented rock god, frustrated and angry, desperate to escape his own point of view but unwilling to accept the alternative. In order to test 'confirmation bias' - the mind's ability to incorporate new information into an existing model of the world – he has sought out those who are least like him. And now, he is friends with a Nazi.
Thorpe doesn’t follow the rigid structure of a typical play.
Directed by Rachel Chavkin from American devising masters the TEAM, he presents a monologue which describes his research into his own mind and experience. Billed as engagement with a right-wing extremist - one who is, Thorpe admits, fun and intelligent - it follows the performer’s attempts to challenge his own liberal beliefs. It is a stunning performance: Thorpe embodies the Nazi. It
is a distinctively macho display, full of vigour and frighteningly brutal. Thorpe rejects extremist politics - as the Nazi tells him he has been conditioned to do – but reaches towards an extreme theatricality that rages as hard as the Minor Threat hardcore number that is used to illustrate the confusion of racial identity. Although the staging in the round and Thorpe's pacing recalls a shamanic ritual, his experiment in mind expansion is doomed to failure: rather than understand his opposite, he becomes a raging liberal, disturbed at the collapse of certainties but determined to hold his position. Yet by lacking a conclusion, Confirmation is all the more powerful, encouraging the dialogue between relativity and truth to leap free of the performance and to challenge the audience. (Gareth K Vile) ■ Northern Stage at King's Hall, 47 6630, until 23 Aug (not 10, 17), 4.35pm, £14 (£11)
7–14 Aug 2014 THE LIST FESTIVAL 85