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PREVIEW REVIVAL ABSURD PERSON SINGULAR
Theatre Royal, Glasgow, Mon 8-Sat 13 Sep
Alan Ayckbourn's decades-long journey through English suburban angst was seldom better exemplified than in Absurd Person Singular. Central to the story is the compulsion of people to consume and accumulate wealth to the detriment of their emotional wellbeing.
Three Christmases are endured in three kitchens. which form the backdrop to meetings between three couples. lower middle. upper middle and upper class respectively. Fortunes change. power shifts. but all is as nothing to the emotional damage done to each character in this savage satire of bourgeois English mores. ‘When I first saw the play. I thought they were all incredibly unsympathetic characters.‘ says actress Deborah Grant. familiar from such TV dramas as A Bouquet of Barbed Wire. ‘But in doing the play. I'm enjoying them enormously. I don‘t know if we‘re doing it differently or I'm mellowing with age.‘
Grant feels the three-kitchen setting affords an unprecedented opportunity for social observation. ‘AlI life happens in the kitchen in anybody's house.‘ she says. ‘The kitchen tells you everything about your house - what you have. what you‘ve left out. It's like watching people‘s supermarket baskets. you can tell so much.‘ This piece is set in period. with 70s interiors. but much remains recognisable according to Grant: ‘PeOple don't change. we still have the same problems with our relationships now as we did then.‘ (Steve Cramer)
PREVIEW CLASSIC
MOTHER COURAGE AND HER CHILDREN
Dundee Rep, Sat 6-Sat 27 Sep
One of the neglected aspects of Mother Courage and Her Children. Brecht's great condemnation of capitalism as it is manifested in war. is its humour. There's a certain dark perversity to Brecht's story. which depicts a mother inadvertently sacrificing her children one by one for profit. It's an aspect not lost on Gerry Mulgrew. who. fresh from his CATS award for best actor in Dundee Rep‘s Peer Gynt, is back with the company as director of this classic.
'The thing about Brecht is he turns everything on its head.‘ he says. 'There's a song in the second half about Solomon and Julius Caesar and Socrates. how they were all virtuous. and it earned them the chop — they all came to sticky ends — his take on it is that it's better to be a coward and stay at home.‘
Mulgrew is keen to emphasise parallels between Brecht‘s massively theatrical drama and current world events. “Mother Courage has an instinctive maternal side that is undermined by her relentless desire to do business — there‘s that terrible irony about it. that war is actually business carried out by other means. Obviously that's what 's happening in Afghanistan and Iraq as we speak: there's a lot of business going on in those countries. When the Taliban was in power there was no poppy grown; as soon as the war started. they started producing more heroin than ever before.‘ While Mulgrew's observation is a chilling one. it holds a certain bleak humour of the kind promised by this production. (Steve Cramer)
PREVIEW MODERN BALLET
SCOTTISH BALLET
Theatre Royal, Glasgow, Thu 18-Sat 20 Sep; Edinburgh Festival Theatre, Thu 25-Sat 27 Sep
Since its reinvention five years ago, Scottish Ballet has embraced a wide variety of dance styles, the full gamut of which it’s managed to squeeze into one diverse mixed bill. Featuring works by the mother of American postmodern dance, Trisha Brown, New York choreographer, Stephen Petronio and Scottish Ballet’s artistic director, Ashley Page, the company’s autumn season has the proverbial something for everyone.
Trisha Brown’s For MG: The Movie met with a mixed response at last year’s Edinburgh International Festival - and is likely to do the same this time. At first glance, the piece can look like a bunch of dancers running around or standing still. But the genius is in the detail, and Brown’s work is worthy of a second look, not least because of her influential standing in dance history.
For those who prefer modern ballet with a narrative twist, Page’s new work, Pennies From Heaven, should prove an intriguing prospect. Inspired by Dennis
Theatre
Potter’s TV drama of the same name, the piece features stylish costumes and catchy songs from the 19305, while Page himself has yet to produce a bad step since his arrival at Scottish Ballet.
Completing the bill is Stephen Petronio’s energetic Ride The Beast. Last seen alongside Brown’s work at the 2007 Festival, the piece uses a soundtrack of Radiohead songs to devastating effect. What made Petronio opt for the UK rockers? ‘Because they’re a great band,’ he says simply. ‘I really need to be inspired by music because I have to listen to it so much when I’m creating. And I listen to Radiohead a lot anyway, so it was fun choreographing to their music.’
The music may be British, but the piece is pure Stateside. Named after a water ride in Manhattan’s Central Park, Ride The Beast is fast-paced and frenetic, with moments of real beauty - much like Petronio’s home town. ‘The thing about New York is there are all these lives intersecting,’ he says. ‘And they’re part of a flow chart of movement on the street, but they’re so unrelated. That’s been very inspiring to me and shows up in my work.’ (Kelly Apter)
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