FESTIVAL THEATRE REVIEWS
BORIS AND SERGEY’S VAUDEVILLIAN ADVENTURE Droll and bawdy puppet double act ●●●●●
Nothing covers cracks like cuteness. Boris and Sergey are two faceless leather bunraku puppets that look like reconstituted footballs sprung to life. They speak in gravelly Russian honks and have more than enough character to get away with a dis- tracted show. Manipulated by six hands each, Boris and Sergey start with wittily miniaturised Vaudeville turns. Sergey hops onto a balancing ball and wob- bles around poison-tipped drawing pins. Party- poppers explode around him like tabletop fireworks. Boris follows with a drag recreation of Kate Bush’s Wuthering Heights. However, the second-half swerves off, dropping
music hall for a poker-table fleecing then a mis- guided fantasy subplot about evil wraiths The Dark Ones. Boris and Sergey are best when most like us, as a bawdy and shambolic double-act unravel- ling. We never get to see them try and salvage the botched finale set up early on. Nonetheless, Boris and Sergey are great company and their Vaudevillian Adventure makes a droll subversion of the Fringe as a whole. With more structural rigour, Flabbergast Theatre could take them far. (Matt Trueman) ■ Pleasance Courtyard, 556 6550, until 27 Aug, 11pm, £9–£10 (£8–£9).
BEATS Tremendous recreation of rave culture ●●●●●
In 1994 the UK Criminal Justice and Public Order Act outlawed gatherings of more than 100 people with a soundtrack of ‘amplified music character- ised by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats’. In the following years opposition to this most Orwellian of government interventions has found expression in books by the likes of Jon Savage, music by the Prodigy and Orbital, and now forms the basis of Kieran Hurley’s CATS award-winning play. Hurley may be too young to have experienced the dance music explosion of the late 80s/early 90s but he does a tremendous job of recreating an authentic club atmosphere, enhanced by a thrill- ing live soundtrack from DJ Johnny Whoop and complementary visuals by Jamie Wardrop. His play is ostensibly a coming-of-age tale but Hurley uses his cast of characters to explore the wider political context, in particular the effects of Tory policies on central belt Scotland. This rich piece of writing is brought to life by Hurley in a hugely impressive per- formance, remaining seated throughout yet shape shifting effortlessly to create an array of fully fleshed, believable people. (Allan Radcliffe) ■ Traverse Theatre, 228 1404, until 26 Aug, 11pm, £17–£19 (£12–£14).
MIES JULIE Essential adaptation of Strindberg’s classic ●●●●●
Truly great productions of classic texts can reveal the play within the play. Who knew that beneath the staid formality of August Strindberg’s Miss Julie lurked a play as explosive and heartwrenching as Yael Farber’s South African-set rewrite? Like Patrick Marber, whose After Miss Julie transposes Strindberg’s plot to post-war Britain, Farber
strips the text down to a taut three-hander. In fact, taut is too loose: there’s not a smidgeon of superfluity here. Farber gives us the core nucleus. What becomes clear are the atomic bonds – equal push and pull – between Mies Julie (Hilde
Cronje) and her servant John (Bongile Mantsai). Relocated to a South African farmhouse, beneath which both sets of ancestors – black Xhosa and white Afrikaans – are buried side by side, their sexu- al entwining is a serious trangression, even if it mirrors the picture below ground.
From there, however, their situation swells to a monumental impasse. Three or four times they reach the cusp of eloping as equals, only for one or other to cough up some half-swallowed pride. Neither is quite willing to give up their claim to the land, to forget past grievances for the sake of a better life. They become two snare traps biting at each other’s metal jaws.
This is absolutely Miss Julie, but it is also absolutely contemporary. Play and setting mutually illu- minate each other brilliantly. Strindberg’s drama is also stretched to its fullest. Farber’s text, which replaces John’s fiancé with his upstanding mother, is fiercely direct, invoking bald love and hate. Mantsai and Cronje play it with such full-blooded force – his physical violence matched by her sting- ing words – that the effect is devastating, even if the brusqueness occasionally snags.
Not that this Baxter Theatre production is all muscle and heart. Intelligent details abound – Cronje’s flicker of terrified Lolita when John suddenly, ferociously, reciprocates; John’s wine glass that shifts the status – and profound lines burst out. Essential. (Matt Trueman) ■ Assembly Hall, 623 3030, until 27 Aug, 2pm, £14–£16 (£13–£15).
LOVE LETTERS TO THE PUBLIC TRANSPORT SYSTEM Celebration of society’s unsung heroes ●●●●●
The premise of Molly Taylor’s monologue sounds so precious you almost wouldn’t expect it to work as drama. In 2009, following a break-up, Taylor travelled to London where a chance meeting led her into another relationship. Though this love affair was fated not to last, she decided to contact those ‘fate- enabling’ bus and train drivers who had delivered her to the significant moments in her life. It’s impossible not to warm to Taylor, who delivers
her story with amiable informality, interweaving her own experiences of corresponding with transport workers and officials (including Boris Johnson) with similarly fateful tales. If, overall, her show feels slight, it’s still refreshing to experience a piece of theatre celebrating the small things that make our lives worth living, particularly when delivered with gentle humour and endearing sincerity. (Allan Radcliffe) ■ Assembly Rooms, 0844 693 3008, until 26 Aug, 6.15pm, £10 (£9).
138 THE LIST 23 Aug–20 Sep 2012