THEATRE ?
What’s The Matter With Mary Jane?
Sancla Robinson stars in the true story
oi her own lite and her iourteen-year battle with anorexia and bulimia. It’s not a relaxing aitemoon’s viewing. The stage is dominated by a iridge and a
toilet, one representing the anorexic’s
guilt and the other representing both
Purgatory and the purgative. Robinson ; Not that the entire play is one long
’ drag through misery, Robinson seems i too strong and optimistic ior that.
tilts between the two, re-enacting the youth which she ilushed away.
In a play that is all about the seli - seli-doubt, sell-loathing, seli-
delusion, sell-abuse - almost the only '
word that does not merit the preiix is pity. Robinson’s poweriul monologue, while harrowing, ls never whining, rather she comments drny on her younger sell irom the distance oi age and the wiser perspective oi the recovering anorexic. To a certain extent, Robinson can even joke about her former condition but the subject matter is so grim that any nascent laughter dies stillborn in your throat.
sancla Robinson llushes awayher youth
She does not shy away irom demonstrating the acutely unpleasant aspects oi the condition which makes
the play distinctly unnerving to watch.
Yet it is because oi this that the play is so compelling. For Robinson to reveal so much oi herseli is courageous and, hopelully, cathartic. (Jonathan Trew)
What's The Matter With Mary Jane?
(Fringe) Assembly Rooms (Venue 3) 226 2428, until 2 Sept, 1.30pm, £7/Z‘8 : (cs/£7).
THEATRE § lE PETIT CIROUE oEs ‘HORRORS’
i Skullduggery is afoot in l the world of Albert & ‘ Fn'ends instant Circus. Alcoholism and envy has ' driven our young i aristocrats to mortgaging their house and the debt- I collectors are closing in. I But ifyou‘re stuck for I lucre there‘s always ' ballroom dancing on a ! uni-cycle! 3
For this young troupe l
(teens and tots) skipping I on stilts or spinning a hula-hoop while balanced on a ball isjust an I extension of their obvious acting skills. They have 1 Hollywood looks too: think of Antonio Banderas. Pheobe Cates. and. I swear it. a young Brad Pitt. in a depression
era feel-good silent film. Carr)
Instant movieola. (Deirdre I To Comiort Ghosts Molloy) ; (Fringe) NSTC. Southside I Le Pom Clrgues lies Community Centre
‘llorrors' (Fringe) Albert & Friends Instant Circus. Wireworks Playground (Venue 1) 13—28 Aug.
National Student Theatre Company is a high-
resolution, rock 'n‘ roll
, parable about a modern-
; day angel who is sick of being an icon and decides to take a more hands-on approach to saving the world. Dressed in a white suit. silver DM’s and i 3 smoking a fag. our foppish angel sheds his
? wings. is promptly raped by a furious. foxy chick of i a God in pinstripes (a scene which has already ruffled the feathers of Tory councillor Moira Knox) and soon finds earth is full of tortured souls who are blind to the sight of a sympathetic angel. Glass creates potent images with his almost
: Bosch-like vision of
heaven ’n‘ earth. but he
? needs to go easy on the
shock horror and add a measure of subtlety to give his work real dramatic depth. (Ellie
(Venue 82) 667 7365. until 26 Aug. 2.45pm. £4.50 (£2.50).
streets that are housed in the atmosheric Tron Kirk. Bruce Morrison looks suitably rakish clad from top to tail in black leather as he leads the audience : around the places. people ; and social mores of old j Edinburgh. Morrison evokes this i world with vigour and I humour — one moment he‘s the drunken carouser. the next he‘s the learned scholar and all the time. through all the characters he projects a bubbling mischievousness that comes the audience along. Entertaining for visitors and locals alike. (Jonathan Trew) I Auld Relltle (Fringe) ‘ Bruce Morrison, Tron
2 Kirk (Venue 5) 220 1637, ; until 26 Aug. 1.30pm. Free with donation to W.G.H. Leukaemia Research Fund.
l.l5 m, free. 5 p THEATRE ; THEATRE AULD REIKIE f There could not be a To better or more authentic setting for a dramatisation of Robert F ' w "' Simon Glass's dance/ -‘ earthy poerriragtrostsi??8$m ! Ml ‘1 fl physrcal theatre ; century Edinburgh than ' 3W“ "own": take“: production for the g the excavated cobbled J Ind
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Lawaiian shirl‘s, insane sl‘aff funky sounsls, sunless laeer garden, lalces of wine, rivers of beer, iorrenl's of l‘equilas, margariia mayhem champagne madness, orange walls, purple bar, ans] lasl‘ laul‘ nol' leasl' crankshafl‘s - ii’s you couls) ever wanl' in a later - honesl'!
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The List 18-24 Aug 1995 33