Full Tilt @ Tron 2014

Angie Darcy from Janis Joplin: Full Tilt wins Best Performance Award at The Musical Theatre Network Awards 2014

From Fringe First award winning playwright Peter Arnott and multi- award winning director Cora Bissett (Roadkill ), and featuring Angie Darcy as Janis Joplin the show tells the story of the rock and roll legend as seen through the eyes of Joplin and her Full Tilt Boogie Band.

Lysistrata @ C: Team Review part 2 (On Gender stuff)

also, the gender-swapping and the whole 'no prick' thing seems to contradict itself.

The main actor playing Lysistrata- first of all, she was good. Held it together playing a part that was badly written.

aye, this is true, but only for a while.

You mean it fell apart at the end?

aye. It sort of feels like the writer just went "how could this end?" and killed off the character, and the same happened with the acting cause they tried to put in too much.

like the scene where she had the mother character putting black paint on in some type of dream sequence... it slowed down the action enough to make obvious the artifice of theatre (as Brecht would say?) but it didn't seem to do much for the story

That brings me to the big question: why did she get her kit off twice?

good question... first time is actually in the source material, I think, but in a different way

She did a lap dance in some nice red undies and then was stripped by her enemies before being blown up in the Acropolis.

in Aristophanes' version, the men get turned on by watching the women bathe and stuff - I'm guessing that's what the first one was supposed to be a nod to

I'm not sure about the second one...

When we are saying Aristophanes was more subtle, we are in trouble...

well, he wasn't

hehehe

He was: he used words to imply the attraction. He didn't just have the heroine get her flesh out...

well, yes, but he didn't have films or theatre that would let him do that without losing his audience

after all, there was no violence on stage back then... maybe there was no nudity either?

although he seemed to love phallic objects.

He did... but I saw that lap dancing scene as unnecessary to the plot and working a theme not revealed elsewhere. It is proper exploitation.

aye, it could have been cut out completely.

Indeed. And she did not need to be in the black shreddies when she was blown up.

aye, this is true.

so are you saying that for a show that is about women taking control of their bodies, it contradicts itself?

Let's talk about the speech she makes as well: the passionate one about rape culture... which came from nowhere...

yeah, I thought that was going to lead to an actual rape scene, which would have made stripping her at the end more logical...

The prologue, with the male lap dance, fits in with the other vision of feminism, where women indulge raunchy culture for fun...

Dear God, I hadn't thought of that. It gets worse...

yeah but it does seem to explore all variations of feminism - the view that both men and women can work towards equality, the anti-men arguments, and the male rights activists...

I don't think a play can complain about rape culture while adding to the objectification of women without be hypocritical

although it still struggles with the TERF - trans*exclusive radical feminists - since they are yelling 'no more prick', which is kinda body essentialist

Aha! Another problem I missed...

that's why you called me in, no?

yes

Team Review: Vile and Eric on Lysistrata (1)

I think that the Lysistrata adaptation is one of the worst things I have seen on The Fringe.

I do think the cast were okay - they did the gender swaps well enough, and the prologue scene is okay, if a bit easy and cheap.

However, the direction seems to push the action into hysteria, until the actors are all just shouting and rushing their lines.

yeah, the prologue scene feels like they are presenting the stereotype of the lonely woman - the really bad excuse most people tend to give when women are not compliant to their demands.

It feels a bit like they were shoehorning in some parts, but I think it's an interesting exploration of the what if

I think we might start with the representation of women first?

like.. what if Lysistrata was a modern woman.

Chat conversation end

Shakespeare, his Wife and the Dog++++= Lucifer++++=

The play's the thing...
Although they generate very different atmospheres, both *3Shakespeare, his Wife and the Dog *2and *3Lucifer *2prove that there is still life in scripted theatre. Both scripts play loose with their source material – the life and works of the Bard and the Biblical myth of the Fallen Angel respectively – and engage the audience through strong central performances. 

Yet their intentions are entirely distinct. While *3Shakespeare *2is a playful canter through the playwright's declining years, with plenty of references to the Collected Works, *3Lucifer *2makes a taut analysis of how power corrupts, especially in a city where the law and the criminals are hand-in-glove.


As part of Jethro Compton's Capone Trilogy, *3Lucifer *2is perhaps one of the most precise plays in the Fringe. With only a cast of three, an intimate hotel room setting and rumours from Capone's imprisonment floating around the protagonists rise to power and descent to villainy, Compton and playwright Jamie Wilkes follow his increasing isolation from his wife and family. His reliance on violence as a solution to business difficulties is reflected in his behaviour in the home and his power plays strip him of friends and love. It is an intense hour, with Compton's direction at its most terse and exacting.

*3Shakespeare, his Wife and the Dog*2, however, is a joyous celebration of language, despite the underlying themes of senility and death. Finding himself unfashionable, Shakespeare retires and makes his household's lives miserable. Challenged by his wife, he goes through his glorious past, quoting from his glories and trying to find meaning in his past.

As a meditation on old age, the script is given a sparkle by the quotations, but it feeds heavily on the reputation of the hero: the main points are stolen from various of his plays, and the strength of the production comes from the charming central performances.

The success of both plays attests to the versatility of scripted theatre: where *3Shakespeare *2looks back to the past, and hooks into the ongoing public love of Shakespeare, Compton uses the script as a springboard for exciting staging and contemporary discussions about morality. While devised theatre, physical theatre or dance theatre may be more fashionable, the script still has a tale to tell.

*10Shakespeare, his Wife and the Dog

Summerhall, 560 1581, until 24 Aug, 2pm, £14 (£10)

Lucifer

C Nova, 0845 260 1234, until 25 Aug, 6pm, £11.50 -- £13.50 (£9.50 -- £11.50).

Wimmin and Me

Following on from my previous post about female art, a good question arrives on my twitter feed. Is it easy for me to know the gender of a writer or director if it is not written on the programme?

Nothing is easy for me, from getting up to going to sleep, and I certainly would not want to suggest that there is some essential difference between art made by men and women. I suppose it is possible to catalogue enough theatre to make some kind of generalisation, but I am not going to be doing that. It would pander to a gender essential that I don't support, would takes ages and I doubt that it would be conclusive.

Instead, I'll qualify my previous post pleasantly. It is those performances which explicitly address the representation of the female body and experience, like Sirens, that demand a female voice to engage with my opinions. I want to increase the discussion of theatre, not drive it into an argument about gender binaries.

The diversity of gender identity that is starting to be recognised ensures that any statement about 'male' or 'female' art is... idiotic. I sat down and worked it out once, and came up with seven possible genders. These range from CIS (that is, identified with body gender) male to... well, the other extreme is CIS female, but there are plenty of alternatives. Add in sexual identity and I ended up with forty nine combinations.

My attitude to theatre is that it is a safe space to learn about other experiences. That I don't moan about not understanding the physical experience of the South African actors in Race is only my lack of self-awareness... recognising difference might be the first step to addressing the problems it causes - and celebrating the good it brings. Since I can't stand looking at myself in the mirror, I think difference is a good thing.

Dinosaur Zoo

The great frustration about being a big-shot intellectual critic who prides himself on being avant-garde is that I don't get to see stuff like this.





DINOSAUR ZOO creators ‘Erth’ use ingenious puppetry to bring dinosaurs to life in this interactive and imaginative live show, suitable for all the family (age 3+). Audiences are introduced to a range of creatures from cute baby dinos to teeth-gnashing giants, including a carnivorous theropod known as the Australovenator, based on the most complete meat-eating dinosaur skeleton found in Australia. 

Seriously, puppet dinosaurs... 

During the show, intrepid audience members brave enough to get up close and personal with the dinosaurs are brought onto the stage to assist the Zoo Keeper in his/her daily tasks - but be warned - not all of these ravenous reptiles are as tame as they seem! For those who aren't able to join the dinosaurs on stage, they will have the opportunity to meet them at the official ‘meat and greet’, which takes place at the end of each show.

Look! They eat the audience... You don't get this at  Belgian experimental devised theatre.

Fast-becoming a worldwide hit, DINOSAUR ZOO has played to family and schools audiences all over the world, from Sydney to Los Angeles, from New York City to Bahrain, exciting children with its popular mix of entertaining humour, adventurous daring and informative learning. The show had a hugely successful UK tour in 2013, including a one-month summer season at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre and a Christmas season at London’s Phoenix Theatre in the West End. It is currently on a second national tour.



DINOSAUR ZOO will continue to tour the UK through Autumn 2014 and Spring 2015.
30 July to 25 August 2014
The Grand
Pleasance Courtyard

Why I Hate Art By Women

There are probably a thousand and one discussions that can lead off from here, so forgive me if I miss your favourite. I might even get around to mangling it in a later post. In the meantime, here's Chairman Vile's Thought for the Day.

When Valerie Hagar discusses her audience for Naked in Alaska, she observes that it is often women who are most moved. It isn't so much that they share her experiences, but that the struggle she describes is more common than just being a lap-dancer in  a cold state. Questions of self-respect, the need to be admired, to make money and the freedom to express sexual confidence: Naked in Alaska explores these (and has 20-odd characters, all performed by Hagar).

 Intellectually, I could recognise the theme of liberation and redemption that ran through Naked in Alaska, but I struggled to feel it physically. Contrasting this with my experience of Polska at Dance Base, when I found myself grooving along to the extended twerking work-out to Sympathy for The Devil, I started to ask questions about how my nervous system responds to performance.

Despite growing up with a belief in gender equality (more that it is a Good Idea than actually happening), I realise that my nervous system, and the experiences that interpret it and each other, are not female.

The only way that I can get closer to female understanding is by watching art by women but... because I don't have the shared experiences, I won't experience the art through a female understanding and so... my masculine bias trumps it.

This isn't one of those 'I hate being a man' routines. I don't mind it.

Acknowledging that not all women will feel the same, all opinions are subjective, provisional and valid, I still think I am missing something.

Here's two solutions...

I ought to go to more art by women,and take a woman with me, and talk about it afterwards.

Only women ought to review work by women.

Anyone else fancy arguing this out?

Disclaimer: The vile arts does not hate art by women.The title was deliberately inflammatory in the hope someone would read it.