MORE tEAM cRITICISM: KlangHaus

KlangHaus

By Matt TruemanPublished 03 August 2014

Edinburgh 2014 review: KlangHaus – weirdly wonderful performance art

Summerhall, Edinburgh

by Lyn Gardner 

Staged in a former animal hospital, animation and illusion combine in a captivating gig-cum-theatrical show

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Are You Calling Me Soft?

Over at The Guardian, Lyn Gardner has got a new idea. I would say something about how it seems to take a

trip to Scotland for English critics to get new material, but since I copy most of my Big Concepts from them, I can't. I might even add a general disparaging remark about The Guardian's liberalism - although I'll have to see whether that fits in with my theme.

The original post that had me fuming was a suggestion that Scottish critics were 'soft' on Scottish work. Apart from revealing her lack of knowledge of Glasgow vernacular (on the West Coast, calling someone soft translates as 'I would like to engage you in a duel of fisticuffs to protect my impugned honour'), her conclusions are rightly corrected by various responses on the site. The slightly patronising tone suggests that it is 'nice' for the locals to have critics who understand their work - no doubt performed in a dialect, and about issues that only matter north of the border, like poverty and social exclusion.

Knowing most of the critics that Gardner alludes to, I doubt 'soft' is quite the right word for them. As a group, Scottish critics are pugnacious, and have distinctive tastes to the point that finding any other adjective that fits all of them is difficult. Admittedly, the size of Scotland's theatre community ensures that every critic's profile is well known, which has the advantage of allowing the artists and audience to put a review in  a wider context. But the Scottish critics have demonstrated, in their reviews of the EIF's Leaving Planet Earth, that they rarely speak with a single voice.

I actually take offence at the idea of 'Scottish critics': nothing links us except our nationality, which, like gender or race or religion, doesn't shed much light on the individual's identity. I'm reading Nick Cohen again, and somewhere in his arguments against liberalism, he points out that the kind of thinking that groups people by national identity is either patronising or racist. I might not go that far - not least because Cohen's latest book is all about how the libel laws in  the UK are easily marshalled. But I don't think that grouping critics is helpful.

This also plugs into the debate about star rating...

Unfortunately, I can't discuss that because I died of boredom typing the words.

Anyway, all these things fail to recognise that criticism is subjective. It's part of a dialogue... while I usually like a bit of banter on this, I am going to move on: the job of the critic is to talk about theatre, not get too self-referential about their process.

Insert appropriate ironic exclamation at the audacity of that statement on this blog...

It's The Vile Top Seven: Number Seven

On The Radio Hour, top DJ and sound engineer at the coolest parties, Josh Hill correctly complained that the annual Hot Lists tend to miss out the personal - as he putting it, "more huffing of poppers outside the Old Hairdressers" and less grand statements about the state of the nation. In this spirit, I wrote a highly personal top ten. Then I realised that "five great text messages" won't end up on anyone's publicity material.

As a compromise, and a sop to my massive ego, I am going to identify the seven top trends in my thinking. This will allow me to mention as many events as I like, and still make it all about me. I challenge the artists mentioned to include my shout out to them in their next application for funding.

Trend no. 7: My Continued Inability to Integrate a Political Consciousness into my Aesthetic Critique.

Fond as I am of banging on about alienation, I still struggle to see the best way for political philosophy to appear within performance. The highly dramatic boycott of Israeli company Batsheva Dance made a passionate appeal on behalf of the Palestinian people, but managed to piss off plenty of liberal critics who found it intrusive (the show was stopped by chanting groups inside the auditorium) and hypocritical (The Russian ballet company up the road didn't get any attention, despite having a state that enjoys oppressing minorities, too).

There are arguments on both sides - mostly focussing on the exact relationship between Batsheva's tour and the amount of funding provided by the Israeli government - but life would easier if the choreographer in question wasn't both brilliant and personally ambivalent about the antics of his government.

While this was the most publicised political action in the arts - it had  similar heavy duty support that would give the weight to the complaints against Creative Scotland - politics has entered the theatre in more interesting ways - Kieran Hurley and AJ Taudevin had a look at the London riots for their entry at Oran Mor's Play, Pie, Pint programme, Make Better Please saw the previously personal Uninvited Guests strain against the build up of media inspired despair, and Lyn Gardner wrote a blog about political theatre in the Guardian. Alan Bissett, wearer of a very cool leather jacket, made explicit his support for an independent Scotland and David Greig set up a dialogue about national identity in his sequel to Macbeth.

In the time that I began writing criticism, the political was on the back-foot. Perhaps it was the amount of money, or moral support, being thrown at the artists under New Labour. Perhaps it was the emphasis on personal politics - like in the version of Wuthering Heights now being prepped for The Arches' Platform 18 Awards, the study of the self and identity was seen as far more important. Unfortunately, I am about to be left behind, having embraced that path - I am still more interested in art as a mirror of the audience than as a manifesto for a better world. But if Greig, Bissett, Taudevin and Hurley are investigating it, I am willing to believe that political theatre is making a comeback and is now relevant.

Glasgow Girls at the Citizens was also the first agit-prop musical that had a dub 7" handed out at the door - its good humoured mix of local history (it covered the campaign to protect asylum seekers), multi-cultural dance numbers and poignant satire made me reconsider both the musical and the theatre as a direct forum for political opinion.

Of course, I have been told by a dear and old friend that "everything is politics," and my continued insistence on the primacy of aesthetics is, in itself, an immoral conservatism. I am hoping that Arika hurry up with their next weekend of engaged readings and gigs. Their Special Form of Darkness weekender had a mixture of serious Marxist analysis and fun nihilism, which suits my anarchist instincts.

Rating Mania! Five Stars if you mention me.

Now that Lyn Gardner from The Guardian has mentioned it, I feel more comfortable blowing off some steam about star ratings. I mostly love the Fringe because it is the only time that anyone pays much attention to the critics, and I repay the compliment by becoming obsessed with the worth of various magazine's output. Gardner is succinct and subtle: she notes that the stars awarded by the newspapers are "different" to those awarded by the Fringe only publications (the temptation to regard The Herald and Scotsman as more important is rarely avoided by those who have got good ratings from them), before piously hoping that audiences recognise this difference.

My ratings rant is best expressed by way of an example.

 I am just out of Formby, written by and starring Ewan Wardrop. It's a jolly little show, tracing the life of Wigan's comedy ukulele strumming film star. It's tough to get tragedy from Formby's life: he was a success, died soon after his wife and kept clear of any big scandals. His wife and manager Beryl is the acknowledged power behind his cheeky chappy persona and (almost rude) tunes: they had good politics (Beryl annoyed the South African regime) and did sterling work during WWII as entertainers.

For me, it's a solid three stars, if we must. Wardrop hasn't quite got Formby's voice or mannerisms off pat, but his time as part of Matthew Bourne's company pays off when he becomes Beryl and knocks out a tap number. Most importantly, he can tell a good story, charm the crowd  strum the Formby way, catching the syncopation that made his numbers stand out from the clod-hopping beat of most ukulele players.

Of course, that three stars has nothing in common with the three stars I'd give to Do Theatre for Hangman. That has a bigger cast, who poke around at the way that words can replace the thing itself, and, using the children's game as a metaphor, question the power of the word and its absence. It's all dark, very Russian and physical theatre. Although both shows gain my approval because of the way they use movement - and I am judging similar qualities, like performance, or use of the space, or script - one's a cheeky half-hour of fun, the other's a pretty serious provocation.

So, even within one critic's little world, there is variation. All that the stars really add is a slight suggestion of quality. The real reason an audience member goes for one show over another is that they are more interested in the content.

Star inflation is only possible to measure if there is a set of values shared by companies and critics - and I don't even see my star rating as meaning the same thing in different genres. Three stars means good enough, four is a bit more exciting, five means it changed my life... and you ought to see them, if you care about the content.

Besides, stars don't make audiences. There's a show that has nothing but four and five star reviews, from the mainstream and Fringe media. I saw it last night, and there were three other people there.

How many people read the reviews? And how many people read the reviews of reviews? I only wrote this to see whether the other critics would find it.