WORLD THEATRE
ON THE
FESTIVAL
You may claim as many different offers as you wish, but please take the whole magazine with you each time. All otters are strictly subject to availability and the individual managements’ decisions are final.
Only one ticket offer for each voucher. First come, First served - Enjoy the show!
HULL TRUCK
"3”:
Up to 30 tickets available for the 3.45pm
pertormance of TWELFTH NIGIIT on Mon 14 Aug. Exchange this voucher for up to 2 tickets at the Assembly Rooms Information Desk.
NAT" )1 ‘21li "WT assistsxzssz:2: masses... )1 J
this voucher at the George Square Theatre Box 'l‘I-IEM‘RE
Dttice. Up to 4 pairs available for each performance. - 5 § :} 1' ‘o Q~ 0
THE KOSH
A pair of tree tickets to see ENDANGERED SPECIES on Mon 14, Tue 15, Wed 15 Aug (8pm). Exchange
this voucher at the Theatre Workshop Box Office. Up to 4 pairs available lor each performance.
4/ R) ‘N
THE CAMBRIDGE CAMBRIDGE FDDTLIGHTS FOOT‘LIGHTS A pair of tree tickets to see BACK AND BEYOND on Mon 14, Tue 15, Wed 16 Aug (11.35pm). Exchange this voucher at the Pleasance Box Office. Up to five pairs available lor each performance.
ACK GLATZER
J C K - pair of free tickets to see JACK GLATZER making
G L Z E R his British debut on Mon 14, Tue 15, Wed 16 Aug (2pm). Exchange this voucher at the Calton Studios Box Office. Up to 4 pairs available for each
periormance.
TRAVERSE
TRAVERSE THEATRE
A pair oi free tickets to see Neil Dram in WARPED TALES FROM THE TRUTH PEDLAR on Tue 15, Wed
15 Aug (2pm). Exchange this voucher at the Traverse Theatre Box DIice. Up to 5 pairs available for each periormance.
1987 will admit. The author of Decadence seemed a natural choice to direct this tale of epicuran passion.
Berkoff, like so many others in this age ofthe beatification ofWilde, stesses how the man‘s life imitated his art. ‘As a study ofillicit passion‘. he argues. ‘Salome doubles as a neat metaphor for Wilde‘s own lifestyle. The love Salome feels is overwhelming and desperate to an excess. for an object that has been forbidden.‘ However, unlike most other interpreters of the Irish playwright. Berkoff seeks not to convey the richness of his imagination and decadence of lifestyle through corresponding stage images but conversely ‘to bare the text and leave the words crawl inside the audience‘s mind.‘
The result: an exquisite minimalist masterpiece which lead Theatre World to claim ‘The most hypnotic piece oftheatre to be seen in Dublin for ages' and the Irish Independent to state quite simply ‘a work ofgenius.‘
So what does Mr Berkoff care for the druidy druids of Dublin who termed the show Salami? - not a sausage.
(Colin Teevan)
THE AMERICAN CONNECTION
While the Fringe has never been a big draw for European theatres, American companies now make up over 50% of foreign groups here — this year there are nearly 40. 28 ofwhich are performing in three venues run by American Festival Theatre, with everything from O‘Neill to one-woman raps about the Catholic church. Something of a Fringe veteran after 8 years here, AFT producer Harold Easton explains why so many are prepared to make the trip: ‘For us, we were doing okay in New York, but here is where the real attention came, the press came, the audiences came. A lot of companies find that one particular place takes a shine to them - it just so happened that there was an ocean in between!‘ The groups come for a myriad ofdifferent reasons but above all the Festival seems to carry the kudos of recognition from another English-speaking culture — faint strains of the ‘Old Country”? ‘Somebody somewhere
else has said they‘re good and not just the folks at home. It‘s a great place to go which still has some kind of artistic meaning— and basically it‘s still a real blast!‘
Companies like those from the University of Southern California have been coming back for years. Asked why they do it, Easton reveals a healthy lack of cynicism. ‘A woman I met from
Tennessee put it this way:
it‘s like giving birth - you hate it while it‘s happening but you look back on it with tremendous fondness and want to do it all over again.‘ Shows to watch for are those from the Actors‘ Gang (at the International Festival). lntiman Theatre. Source Theatre,
AFT‘s own shows. notably Lady and the Clarinet by Witches of Eastwick scriptwriter Michael Christofer. But there are many others out there . . . (Simon Bayly)
POOR LIZA
A mass of bodies. swathed in rags, chanting hypnotically. Two female figures, back to back.
Fringe. Karamsin occupies a pre-eminent place in Russian literary history introducing a European. sentimental strain into Russian prose. Karamsin humanised Russian literature; in his way he is a Russian version of Henry Mackenzie. Poor Liza. written in 1791 on his return from France is sentimental in the extreme: a peasant girl. seduced and abandoned. commits suicide. Theatre on Nikitskikh‘s dramatic. gypsy style will be the ideal vehicle for this impassioned tale. transforming it into haunting and powerful theatre. (Andrew Pulver) I See IIitlist.
Festival Theatre USC and '
their faces barely lit. their ;
voices ecstatic. screaming. An accordion band. fiddles. exuberant dancing. Theatre ou Nikitskikh are completely unknown in Britain. and are making their first appearance in this country at the Traverse in this year‘s Fringe. The only available images oftheir past performances exist
on video. From Moscow, Theatre on Nikitikikh are ‘
headed by acclaimed director Mark Rozovsky.
i
and since 1987 have been i
the only self-supporting company in the Soviet Union.
Their offering for the Fringe is an adaptation of Nikolai Karamsin‘s famous novella. Poor Liza. On the 200th anniversary ofhis mammoth trip to Europe. which happily coincided with the French Revolution. Theatre ou Nikitskikh‘s production is strangely appropriate to the general theme ofthe
STAR JOB
Still hot from Avignon. Theatre de la Mie de Pain return to the Fringe this year (their last show. Seance Friction, won the Scottish Daily Express
A ward in 1987) with Star Job. A new piece in their inimitable physical style. StarJob is a complex and humorous look at the contemporary business world and its protege the Euro-yuppie.
He/she (they come in both sexes) is ofthe aspiring ‘designer‘ mentality. hopping from London to Strasbourg and probably commuting from 16th century Chateaux in Normandy. The show traces the progress of five aspirants from job interview to appointment, and illustrates. through a combination of choreographed movement, song and minimal text (in English). how to reach the pinnacle of success and get that star job.
All graduates of the Dullin school in Paris. the six-strong company work collectively, beginning in improvisation which is then scripted. The style is burlesque and above all visual. using music from Kubrick‘s Full Metal
Jacket. The intention is to communicate, through laughter, a questioning of today‘s ‘upwardly mobile‘ society where. it is implied. to be a winneris to be a killer.
‘The business world makes war.‘ the play asserts. ‘One has to
defend oneself. . . make the business an ideal, work on Sundays.‘ (Caroline Richards)
I Star Job (Fringe) Theatre de la Mie de Pain, Assembly Rooms (Fringe Venue 3), 226 2428.11—19 Aug 10pm. 20 Aug 3.45pm. £5.50 (£4.50).
34The List 11-17 August 1989