The Marriage of Figaro @ The Lyceum

I know that it isn't cool, and it betrays my staunch West Coast isolationism, but I am becoming fond of the Royal Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh. It does have a reputation for presenting plays that people might have heard of, which is anathema to my Live Art pretentions: there have been Shakespeares and Oscar Wildes on the programme in the last couple of years. And yet... they seem to be willing to back risky new work, support a young company and update classics relevantly. I guess I'd classify them as "healthy".


Delving into my rucksack, I just found a press release for their Marriage of Figaro. Now that I getting on and losing my hair (and the pony-tail only emphasises the bald patch), I am increasingly fascinated by opera. The grand scale of the passions, the swell of the aria, the high production values and the technical skill...


This is the play, though: and it has been given an up-date by Glasgow author DC Jackson, who kicks it from the world of the French aristocracy into the contemporary world of high finance. It's a sweet touch: Beaumarchais' original poked fun at the decadent fools who annoyed their nation so much that they ended up on the wrong end of a revolution. Here's hoping the second time's a charm...


Jackson is best known for his sardonic My Romantic History, a really dark comment on relationships, or the family life trilogy of The Wall, The Ducky and The Chooky Brae. His skill is using vernacular language to get at the big ideas beneath the mundane. That, and his bawdy sense of humour. 


Relocating the action to bars, and with sexual politics on the boardroom table, Jackson's vision chimes with director Mark Thomson's. "Power and sex have always been a rich mine  for drama both in tragedy and comedy," he says. "The plotting joy of the original Beaumarchais has been joyfully transposed by DC Jackson into today’s post merger world of finance where it’s the bankers and not the aristocrats who abuse power as love, lust and money contend for the most important currency in the universe.”


Plus, it has Mark Prendergast in it, who seems to be able to do anything from pantomime to tragedy. 

LYCEUM TICKETS & PERFORMANCES:

Performances: 23 March – 14 April 2012

Evenings: Tuesday – Saturday at 7.45pm  

Matinees: at 2.30pm                                                                                                                         

Box Office: 0131 248 4848 

Six Degrees Of Separation – Edinburgh Graduates Theatre Group

"I read somewhere that everybody on this planet is separated by only six other people.  Six degrees of separation.  Between us and everybody else on this planet." 

Ouisa Kittredge – Six Degrees Of Separation.

Back when I used to teach Religious Studies (it was in another country and, besides, the career is dead), there was a popular website based around this very concept. I think it ended up like everything else that played with Social Networking before Facebook - so irrelevant that I can't even be bothered to Google search it. However, there was a film about the idea, and it had the Fresh Prince of Bel Air in it. That was more successful.

Then there was a game, called Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. The idea was to link up everyone in the world to Kevin Bacon. Then Kevin Bacon started up a charity called sixdegrees.org. As long as this keeps him away from making a sequel to Footloose, I approve.

Before the film, there was the play. It was written by John Guare. Now there is a production in Edinburgh. Edinburgh Graduates Theatre Group are doing it at Adam House in April. Their press release plays with the concept.

Step One. 

Ross Hope, director of  Six Degrees of Separation for EGTG, attended a workshop last year with Niamh Cusack (now a Friend Of The Grads).
Step Two. 

Niamh Cusack’s brother –in – law is Jeremy Irons.
Step Three. 

Jeremy Irons starred in the mini-series Elizabeth I with Hugh Dancy.
Step Four. 

Hugh Dancy is married to Claire Danes.
Step Five. 

Claire Danes starred in Romeo + Juliet with Leonardo DiCaprio.
Step Six. 

Leonardo DiCaprio was directed in the film Marvin’s Room by Jerry Saks, who directed the original Broadway production of .... Six Degrees Of Separation.

It has been a long time since I saw the film, but I do remember being surprised that Will Smith could act. Before then, I had him down as a light-weight rapper who would not swear. These days, he turns in solid performances in the worst sort of film (I, Robot, which has the world's most blatant sneaker product placement and that one about Happyness (sic), which is something else I can't be bothered to Google search). I was also convinced by the script: there was an authenticity in the dialogue that made the absurd premise of cool art dealers being suckered by a man pretending to be Sidney Poitier's son a viable foundation for a meditation on inter-connectivity.

It is one of those plays that I like: it is intelligent, compassionate and encourages discussion about Big Ideas. In Six Degrees, it is Trust, Relationships and Authenticity (with a side order of Race). It was smart enough to make me take Mr Big Willy Style seriously, even after he did Wild Wild West.

About EGTG
Never shy of a challenge, EGTG have in recent years staged adaptations of Shakespeare’sThe Tempest, set on a barge in Leith, as well as his Comedy Of Errors, Antony & Cleopatra and Hamlet. Additionally, they have tackled more contemporary material - Christopher Hampton’s Les Liaisons Dangereuses, the Scottish premieres of Michael Frayn’s adaptation of Chekhov’s Wild Honey and Owen McCafferty’s adaptation of Sophocles’ Antigone, Patrick Marber’s Closer and Stoppard’s modern classic Arcadia. Their adaptation of Margaret Edson’s Wit was the SCDA full-length competition winner for 2009-10. In 2011, EGTG were selected as the public’s choice to take part in Sky Arts’ televised competition Stagestruck, reaching the final stages and building a relationship with acclaimed actress Niamh Cusack (see Steps 1 and 2 above).

EGTG’s production of Six Degrees Of Separation runs from Wed 4 April to Sat 7 April at Adam House, Chambers Street, Edinburgh. Doors are at 7.30pm. Tickets are available from The Hub.

Another apology

I don't read my own writing very often - not only is this pretty evident from the atrocious grammar, which a simple check would expose, but I find it as difficult as listening to my recorded voice. However, unless I have a look at this blog now and again, I doubt it will ever get any visits.

For various reasons, I am in a reflective mood - it might be the outbreak of post-herpetic neuralgia, or just the painful mistakes I made in another article last week. But I flicked over a few pieces, and picked up on two problems. If you haven't stopped reading yet, now might be a good time... unless you fancy joining my self-indulgent journey into critical doubt.

First stop: Love Hurts by Random Accomplice. About half of my review is concerned with the representation of mental illness. I castigate the author for giving a character an ill-defined mental illness (this is despite alluding to an ill-defined mental illness in my life. Well, critics are meant to be hypocrites. And the doctor hasn't told me what I have got, either).

It is a fairly consistent theme in my criticism: theatre often represents madness as a theatrical trope rather than a specific disorder. I hated The Wonderful World of Disassocia on the grounds that it didn't look like any breakdown I could recognise: Crazy Gary gets it for similar reasons.

Love Hurts is - as I do point out - a strong entry in Random Accomplice's compendium of effective theatre and a brave new direction for Johnny McKnight. If I had given it a star rating, it would have been a four. I am not sure that my review is undermined by my insistence that I need to know the clinical diagnosis of the protagonist. It mattered to me at the time.

But it is a quirk of my personality: I also get pissed off by lazy representations of religious belief, racial stereotyping, lazy humour, Coldplay albums, the lack of respect given to criticism. I know that I deliberately keep a blog so that I can indulge my obsessions without giving them the full weight of an "official review". Then I bang on about blogs being as valid as printed articles and say that criticism is about subjectivity.

Hopelessly confused, anyone?

Then I went into my assault on Terminus. Like with Disassocia, I was really out of the critical consensus with this. I was hating on a play that had been acclaimed across nations. And my first words?

It is everything I don't want theatre to be.

There's a bravery in taking such a bold stand, but it stands against one of my key definitions of what differentiates criticism from opinion. Instead of assessing a play on its own intentions, I was judging it against my desires. I'm not sure I can support myself on this one.

I tried the usual excuse: I was clearly revealing my bias. That works, as long as I don't expect the review to be taken seriously. And I know this isn't the first play that I have recognised as being outside of my interests. My usual tactic is to stay silent.

I want to find a justification for both of these reviews. Let me see...

My recent definition of a critic is a writer who assesses work against its own intention. I don't think either of my reviews were works of criticism, then. They were opinion.

Random Reply

Although Random Accomplice have signposted the Random Bites series as a more experimental short format – allowing co-founder Johnny McKnight a chance to explore a darker monologue than his triumphant trilogy would allow – the voice of this one-woman monologue is familiar from Little Johnny’s previous work. The attention to detail, the occasional witty aside, the preoccupation with the revelatory power of trivia: McKnight’s skill with language has merely been shifted onto a female character, and transposed into a more sinister context. Despite a vicious ending, Love Hurts makes the most of McKnight’s wit and command of west coast patter.

The themes of Love Hurts – the darker side of sexual desire, rough sex and hot three-way action – are certainly a step beyond the warmth and joy that characterised Johnny’s three Big Gay Adventures: yet after the success of Promises, Promises,  Random Accomplice are comfortable stroking the underbelly of desire. At under an hour, it is a brilliantly structured descent into depravity and death – STV’s Toni Frutin captures the self-righteous innocence of Susan perfectly, and McKnight’s script balances the dry humour with the unfolding of vengeful passion.

Technically, Love Hurts is a triumph. Dave Shea’s lighting design is unconventional, adding to the broader atmosphere by a series of partial fades: as an object lesson in the power of the monologue, Love Hurts is masterful. In its analysis of how surprisingly awoken desires can lead to violence, it is supple and sharp. The slightly despairing domesticity of Susan becomes the naturally fertile ground for her murderous impulses.

Unfortunately, especially in a month where the Mental Health Film and Art Festival is occupying many of Scotland’s venues, the depiction of mental ill-health is jarring. From a few early laughs about “happy pills,” the foundation of Susan’s savagery is linked to her undefined mental health problem. While it is possible that her slip from sexual experimentation into killing is the product of mental illness, the representation here is too easy. There’s no attempt to uncover the reasons for her problems, beyond suggestions about her childlessness. The piece may be too short for thorough analysis, but left hanging, it becomes uncomfortable stereotyping. There’s  little need for McKnight’s anti-heroine to be suffering: the plot features enough BDSM and thwarted romance to explain why a housewife would kill a rival in love.

Love Hurts is a powerful work from a very talented author: McKnight manages to write a character that is not an extension of himself – the Little Johnny character is quite clearly a version of him, and unapologetically so - and intrigue through the unwinding of the drama. His direction is gripping, Frutin lends his brooding antagonist a sympathy despite her lack of self-knowledge and nasty streak.  But in a Glasgay! that consciously brings representations of sexuality to light, the depiction of mental illness is unfortunately all too predictable.

85a get Svanky

For Glasgow Film Festival 2012' "Crossing the line" program, 85A ecstatically present the work of genius Czech filmmaker, Jan Svankmajer, in all its demented glory! Each short film showcased this evening will be housed inside specially constructed theatres, coaxing his surreal imagery off the screen and into life before you!
Tailor-made installations, costumed performers, a cosy bar, all beckon you ‘down to the cellar’, and with the main cinema-space ultimately transforming into a thumping discothèque… a night at the megaplex, this is not! Přijít! Vidět! Slyšet!


85a are looking increasingly like the heirs to the great Glasgow Miracle - assuming that the anti-art law doesn't lead to a mass exodus of creatives to Berlin. A collective of talents based in the visual arts, 85a have been busy making films, building installations and events - including The Phantom Band's Christmas special at Stereo - and settled into The Glue Factory as a home. Svankmajer was a natural choice for them: surreal in his mixture of live action and animation, he gives personality and soul to inanimate objects without losing a dark, even sinister atmosphere. And while the film selections were imaginative and thrilling - his big hits like Alice were eschewed for a rounded retrospective - it was 85a's design of The Glue Factory that pulled away from the "night at the multiplex".


There's a palpable sense of occasion to the re-modelling of the space: one film is projected inside an old boiler, another in a home-made house. Grimm cabaret duo Louna introduce two programmes, before throwing down with an especially bloody number: affiliate Spud lends an electronic soundtrack to a tale of existential dread and humour. While Svankmajer's Prague is often the star of his shorts - as Missy Lorelei notes, The Ossuary is a twisted tourist advert - 85a make The Glue Factory a character in their play. Death, clad in monkish cloak and pale face, wanders around the rooms, collecting an audience for a special showing: that this seems normal, not surreal, is a testament to the thoroughness of 85a's vision.


Throughout the films, Svankmajer invites comparisons with Kafka, filtered through a sensibility informed by slap-stick comedy and compassion: yes, the universe is hostile and strange, but it can be funny to watch. Throughout the evening, 85a take the background of The Glue Factory - it's an old, disused space and has a health'n'safety nightmare vibe - and convert it into a fun palace for adults, with popcorn.