PREVIEW FESTIVAL BUZZCUT Pearce Institute, Glasgow, until Sun 10 Apr
With Buzzcut having established itself as a busy, eclectic festival of experimental performance, it’s difficult to pick out a single overriding theme. However, Lechedevirgen Trimegisto and Katy Dye are good examples of the kind of work and ideas that will be on display.
Fusing transgressive performance art with religious iconography, Mexican-based artist Trimegisto, alongside multimedia artist Sorshamn Lara, presents Inferno Varieté (pictured), an alternative to institutionalised homophobia and violence in Mexican art.
‘I see my work within the tradition of Mexican magic and spiritualism,’ explains Trimegisto. ‘It’s among the theatrical background of cabaret and variety shows.’ Influenced by drag and trash culture, and Mexican horror films, Trimegisto has another, more mysterious inspiration: Fidencio Constantino aka El Niño Fidencio, thaumaturgist and curandero from the north of Mexico. ‘He became famous between 1920–30 by creating new and unusual methods of healing. He fully embodies what I understand as an “artist”: someone who makes possible the miracle of transformation and healing, helping to create a better world.’
Meanwhile, performance artist Katy Dye's Baby Face is a meditation on the infantilisation of mature women, both day-to-day and within the media. In particular, it examines the paradox where young girls act older and women cling to childlike ways of looking and behaving.
‘It occurred to me that we live in an age where paedophilia is explicitly condemned, yet the sexualisation of children and women as childlike is so apparent,’ notes Dye who previously worked with the Royal Lyceum Theatre, Camden People's Theatre and Untitled Projects. ‘Baby Face explores the challenging reality of being a woman today when, in many ways, we are still expected to look and act like little girls.’ Citing examples such as Miley Cyrus and bubblegum-blowing models
with bunches, Dye's piece should be provocative and a fascinating discourse on the seemingly ubiquitous youth market and its damaging societal effects. (Lorna Irvine)
THEATRE | Previews & Reviews
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REVIEW DEVISED THEATRE I AM THOMAS Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, until Sat 9 Apr ●●●●● PREVIEW CLASSIC ADAPTATION THIS RESTLESS HOUSE Citizens Theatre, Glasgow, Fri 15 Apr–Sat 14 May
It’s unfortunate that the words Thomas Aikenhead used to describe the Bible (‘a rhapsody of unfeigned nonsense’) make a perfect epitaph for this collaboration between National Theatre of Scotland and Told By An Idiot. Telling the story of the last man to be executed for blasphemy, I Am Thomas is a disappointing mess of comedy, devised performance cliché and political allusions.
The cast battle bravely with material that combines witless comedy, lightweight musical numbers and mysterious references to the 1970s: a comparison of times that never reveals its purpose.
Not only is the humour predictable, it refuses to die. A sketch featuring two
football pundits discussing Aikenhead’s journey repeats itself with the potency of a brussel sprout while Dolly the Sheep prances around the stage during the inevitable court scene (itself a trope that has been a lazy shortcut to dramatic tension since Aeschylus’ Oresteia in 5th century Athens: to give it vitality and depth needs more careful attention than it receives here). The tragedy of Aikenhead is lost in a generic and poorly structured example
of devised theatre in a cabaret format, purportedly inspired by Brecht and Weill but lacking their skills with language and music. There’s an attempt to suggest that Aikenhead’s fate reflects the deaths of the Paris cartoonists (I Am Thomas / Je Suis Charlie) and some relationship between blasphemy and the Sex Pistols’ Never Mind the Bollocks, but this is lost beneath musical numbers that have the melodic charm of Coldplay. (Gareth K Vile)
94 THE LIST 7 Apr–2 Jun 2016
Although inspired by Aeschylus’ ancient tragic trilogy The Oresteia, Zinnie Harris has written a thoroughly contemporary version of the House of Atreus’ bloody tale. Focussing on female characters, her script translates the abstract themes of family conflict from ancient Greek into a recognisable modern context. While Aeschylus displayed a power struggle that reasserts male royal power, Harris is concerned with how her characters deal with crisis.
Clytemnestra, for example, is a melodramatic villainess in The Oresteia, but Harris says her journey is about ‘how she goes from someone like me to someone who murders her husband. She doesn’t want to do it!’ Rather than imitating a classic, Harris recognises the importance of making the story relatable. ‘You have to feel that you can bring something to it. You have to come at it with your own dramatic interpretation.’ With Dominic Hill directing, the distinctive qualities of his approach promise an immediate, exciting and relevant vision of a story dulled by familiarity and reverence. ‘Aeschylus is working in archetypes,’ she continues. ‘But there is this family who have just been blown apart by the father who put the decision to go to war over being a dad. We have this small family group trying to work out a way to get over it.’ Blending psychology, a distinctive visual theatre aesthetic and huge questions about coping and morality, This Restless House re-imagines past mythology as an exploration of social, familial and emotional violence. (Gareth K Vile)