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Feel the dark side: touched. . .
Acres of green grassy fields and pints of smooth black beer are the tourist board images we often associate with rural Ireland. But, for 21-year-old Irish writer/director Ursula Rani Sarma. there lurks a world of torture and abuse beneath the idyllic surface.
Sarma highlights the darker side of quiet country life in touched. . ., a 60- minute odyssey tracking the lives of two children as they flee their rural environment and attempt to find solace on the streets of the country’s capital. Despite its serious subject matter, Sarma points out that the play is shot through with gentle lyricism and tinged with dark humour that rises when it is least expected.
A multi-award winner at the 1999 Irish Student Drama Awards, Sarma refuses to let financial restraints hold her back but incorporates this potential drawback into her aesthetic strategy: ‘l'm trying to create a minimalist style of performance without the use of sets. Most of the action depends on the actors themselves.’
Her back to basics approach is a welcome move away from theatre that too often relies on the seduction of the image rather than the strength of the text. (Davie Archibald)
I touched. . . (Fringe) Djinn/Granary Productions, H!” Street Theatre (Venue 4 7) 226 6522. 9—30 Aug (not 79) 72.30pm. £6 (£4). Previews 7 & 8Aug. E 4 (£3),
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so riiwsr 542 Aug 1999
FESTIVAL 9—1 pm continued
THEATRE PREVIEW Contradance
Murder, intrigue and anal so.» onstaae The English language premiere of polemic Spanish playvtrrignt Piantrst o Ors' Contradance r “)uld be a tad controversial. Ensemble (,oinoany Teatro Alba, who spetraiise l'lrl(’t”1:'il(; works of a Spanish and stoaiii; nature, Will no doubt he raisinr; a te\'.' eyebrows With this drama that tenties on the sexual DOIIlK s and dad. conspiraCIes of Elizabethan Ennlind The romance between the Queen ari’l Sir Thomas Henry is here iiiven an interesting new dimension, one whit h may disturb historians, and i‘oyalis‘t‘. alike.
Havrng grown up under Fiant o's faSCIst dictatorship, Ois uses the toirrt of England's ‘Faerre Qtieen' as a metaphor for the suppression, lllfg')lly and prejudice Suffered by the Spanish people under Franto. (Xi/ill}lt/(i/lu.‘ explains Janet Gordon, to~foiinilei (it Teatro Alba, is a study of sot rety's Views abOLrt gender and dis( rimination Describing the piece as 'Almodovar like in its blurring of gendei' Gordon stresses that this work is representative of a liberated Spain after Franco r’he reclusive playwright, now in his late Sixties, Will be making a rare vrsit t:> Edinburgh to see this piodui tron (Catherine Brornley)
H Contradance (Fringel leatro A/oa, (j (Venue 79) 225 5 705. 4—30 Aug (not 75) 72 75pm, £6 ([5)
COMEDY PREVIEW
King Arthur And The Knights Of The Occasional Table
Back for another three weeks of literary vandalism and parodit derrrng- do, Lip Servrce arrive at Finge 99 With the USUal slew of hi-or tane irreverente and cheeky girly (harm, only this year, they've opted to get medieval on yo ass
The Arthurian legends are a fantastic topic for a piss take So be ready for the type of rnCisive historical enquiry which arms to establish Just how long
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