Theatre
Stage Whispers
IVariety seems to be the keyword for this year’s announcement of the CATS awards nominations. Perhaps this multiplicity of choice was what lead to the critic’s circle nominating five, rather than the usual four shows in the big winner category, Best Production. The final five were Catherine Wheels’ Home East Lothian, Grid lron’s Roam, ElF’s Blackbird, The Citizens’ Molly Sweeney and The Lyceum’s Faust. Each richly deserved their nomination.
if there was variety in the nominations, three companies scored heavily. Grid iron, in particular, have played a blinder this year, and Edinburgh’s great site specific company received nominations in five categories for Roam and four for The Devil’s Larder, including two separate nominations in one category, one each for Phillip Pinsky and David Paul Jones for their music. There were also four nominations each for Faust and Home East Lothian
Performers categories often create a stir, and this year the strength of the work on display amongst both actresses and actors was truly awesome. The actresses concerned, Jill Riddiford in A Kind of Alaska at The Arches, Cara Kelly for Molly Sweeney, Cath Whitefield in Home East Lothian and Carol Anne Crawford for Prime Productions Further Than the Furthest Thing were all outstanding. The same, indeed, might be said for the actors, Liam Brennan in Perth Theatre’s Tales from Hollywood, Dugald Bruce Lockhart for Faust, Tommy Mullins in Stacy and Andy Clark in The Devil’s Larder.
The impact of the NTS in providing extra funding for many of these individual company projects is obvious - better money provides better quality theatre, yet their own ensemble work, though of great quality, was not so heavily nominated. But companies not funded by the NTS can clearly take heart in their performance, representing well over half of the total of 41 nominations in ten categories. The awards will be held in Dundee next month -- watch this space.
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Review
6000 REASON Traverse Theatre. Edinburgh. Wed 17—Sat 20 May 0.
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A series of uncomfortable visits between Annie (Gillian Lees), an empowered career woman of our times. and Liz (Linda Duncan McLaughlin), her old fashioned mother, provide the structure for this piece directed by Katherine Morley. Well-practiced methods of diverting their conversation from what‘s really on their minds make the strained relationship they share less than the mother daughter bond that's often so strong. But their newfound connection offers one the chance to change if she wants her life to be more than an echo of the other’s pain.
Two years in the making. it‘s difficult to see what Reeling and Writing have spent their time doing. Visually it‘s static in all but Tim Nunn's set, which has utilised his background in photography to good effect. Awkwardly sandwiched between two recitals of Minghella's verse at the beginning and end of the production, the dialogue of the rest of the piece co written by Elspeth Murray and Nunn is functional at best. Both actors give energetic performances with an intensity that suits the myriad of emotions their discovery entails. Impatient and driven. Annie is the embodiment of a shift in the role of women when compared to the traditional figure of her mother, the diligent housewife dominated by a controlling chauvinistic husband, and governed by post it note reminders to do her chores on time. But they can do little to establish characters that are restricted in their dimension by a script that never really gets off its feet. (Eddie Thornton)
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