Harold and Maude (2)

Harold and Maude ought to be right up my alley. It's got a death fixated teenager, a spot of intergenerational sex, shows the world through a variety of different perspectives. There's even a rather charming film from the early 1970s which, as Neil Cooper mentions in his review, was made in the face of social chaos in America, as the hippy dream receded into a more cynical reality.

Colin Higgins' version of his screenplay does struggle to replicate the detail of the film - it is far easier to believe in Harold's alienation when he is wandering around a huge house - and his relationship with Maude is surprisingly gentle, given the grand themes of social disapproval, the twentieth century's violent history and the meaning of life in the face of death that bubble beneath the surface. And despite the breezy humour, it is the substance of the script, which begs deeper analysis, that gives the play its fascination.

Kenny Miller's production, which divides the action into two grand spaces, struggles to catch the nuance of the film version: a solid cast gets the laughs, but  the chemistry between Tommy Barstow's Harold and Vari Sylvester's Maud is only occasionally powerful.

The problem might be in the characterisation: Harold comes across as a sulky teenager, never the most intriguing personality,and the supporting characters - Harold's mother, a sleazy psychiatrist, are caricatures. It makes for a lightweight entertainment, a perky version of social satire but lacking the bite to be directly relevant

Harold and Maud

Harold and Maude does offer a brief maxim for all times and places: Maud describes a wise man passing onto her the slogan "this too will pass." It becomes the closest thing she has to a philosophy: this exuberant pensioner, the idiosyncratic love interest for morbid teenager Harold and survivor of wars, revolutions and beloved husband, is too occupied with living in the moment to regard any grand statement as being worth deeper analysis.

Isn't that him out of the BT advert?

Theatre Jezebel's decision to give the play of the film extends the company's interest in American theatre: their Autobahn convincingly opened up the dark heart of Neil Labute's picaresque visions of lives on the road,and Doubt was an unsettling deconstruction of religious belief, power and child abuse.  Yet Colin Higgins' script lacks the social bite of these plays, and the romance between Harold and Maude is too idiosyncratic to connect effectively to the themes of social constraint, the importance of living through joy and the possibilities of love.

As always, Kenny Miller's design is precise, dividing the stage into Harold's cold, palatial home and Maud's lovingly cosy shack. And Paul Sorley uses a muted lighting design to contrast Harold's emotionless family against Maud's extravagant lust for life. The story - which begins with a faked suicide and ends with a real one - is a deceptively undramatic and gentle narrative, stressing how  Harold's preoccupation with death - and his desperate attempts to provoke his mother into caring - is immature against Maud's genuine hardships which have only encouraged her zest.

Glasgay!'s support for the project, given this year's theme of union, is easy to  explain. Rather than being concerned with the intergenerational nature of the affair - the social reactions are dispatched in a few shocked complaints - Harold and Maude reveals how love, however unexpected, can change a life. And for a play so obsessed with death, it is a subtle message, played out in tender moments, shared intimacies.

However, this is not a play about the grand statements: seeing it  live does not necessarily improve or even equal the film experience - the slight moment when Maude is recognised as a holocaust survivor is beautifully concise and moving on celluloid, but lumberingly alluded to in this script. It retains the humour, the slight charm, but could have done with a big car chase, involving the theft of a police motorbike.

The Authorised Ella Hickson

Grid Iron's recent reputation has been won through the development of intriguingly site-responsive theatre: Ella Hickson is emerging as one of the most exciting playwrights of her generation. The Authorised Kate Bane is self-reflective and, despite the emotional confusion and conflict at the centre of the script, acts as a meditation on the relationship between an artist and her work.

Kate Bane, the heroine who confronts both her family history and anxiety about marriage over the space of a mere twenty four hours, is an author avatar for Hickson: a computer sits at the centre of the stage, and Bane even sits at it to rewrite certain conversations. The final scene, which plays too much like a renunciation of the play's earlier engagement with familial conflict, emphasises the unreality of theatre and offers a vision of life far more palatable than the determined narratives of drama.

Jenny Hulse is a capable actress - most recently, she was confusing the roles of victim and master in Vanishing Point's Wonderland - and she excels in a nuanced performance of the heroine. Switching from confident artist to insecure child, her Kate Bane convincingly unravels the mysterious power of the parent to reduce an adult back to childhood: that Bane is so ready to fall into the part, and identifies childhood as the last chance for an instinctive and happy life, before the horror of self-consciousness destroys both, goes some way to explain this strange and familiar devolution. Hickson not only clearly delineates the generational conflict - mistaken by Bane for class conflict - but goes some way to examine the child's complicity into their oppression.

Her mother, performed with aplomb by Anne Kidd, is a caricature: the former liberated woman who, having escaped marriage turns life into an endless sexual and geographical odyssey; equally, daddy Ike is two dimensional if sympathetic. Along with prospect husband Albin, the rest of the cast are set up to focus on Bane's progress. Albin is inconsistent - one moment a rationalist dispensing words of scientific wisdom, the next drawn helplessly into an unpleasant argument.

Yet the lightness of their characterisation is deliberate, drawing attention to the central conflict which, ultimately, is not between Bane and her parents, or the competing versions of marriage expressed in the play, or between Bane's childhood safety and the responsibilities of being adult. It is about the battle between Bane the character and Hickson the author, and how art feeds on reality.

The end is unsatisfying: having set up fascinating studies of the importance of emotion in memories, a woman's battle to remain free but also to love and the impact of parenting on identity, the finale is a cheap version of Priestly's An Inspector Calls, and cancels out many of the conflicts by effectively consigning them to fiction. Hickson's interesting programme notes state that she is intrigued by "authenticity." Unfortunately the more authentic reflections on Hickson's life mar a brilliant, intelligent script and make it self-indulgent where it could be incisive.

Taiko and Electronica - quite enough for one day, surely?

The fundamental difference between Ben Frost's By The Throat Live and Mugenkyo Taiko Drummers is not merely one of instrumentation but of intention. Taiko may come from an ancient Japanese tradition - the respect shown for the teacher and the ritualistic movements of the drummers reflect music that evolved in a specific cultural and religious context - but Mugenkyo filter it through a determinedly rock'n'roll perspective. Their camouflage costumes, complete with punky functionless zips, the emphatic shaking of hair, the restless chasing between drums, the cheeky, competitive interlude when three male performers demonstrate that size does matter not only show off the drummers' skills but transform the formal presentation of an art into an improvising, melodramatic spectacle.

That founder Neil Mackie was originally a kit drummer is evident in the ethos of the company: the drum is not a framing device for a ritual, but the point and purpose of the performance. Mugenkyo are known as passionate evangelicals for Taiko - they have a school and describe their style as European Taiko - and are always collaborating, not least with the Scottish Jazz Orchestra: their shows focus on the rhythmic energy of the drum, and emphasise the joy and fun of hitting skin with sticks.

By The Throat Live is harder to explain: the concert environment drains the music of the cinematic force of the recorded version, and Frost's own presence is, at times, tangential to the atmosphere. There's a chance for Frost to reconsider the material - the gig is more of a reworking than a straight performance - but, unlike Mugenkyo, he is not trying to introduce an audience to the pleasures of his medium. Rather, there is no celebration, rather an acknowledgement of the music's moody tempers. Flashes of percussion summon the similar energies of percussive might that are the foundation of Taiko, although they emerge from the swirling and drones of Frost's treated sounds and accompany rather than drive.

By The Throat, like Mugenkyo, is a bravura display of skill: it is also a more purely aesthetic experience. Ironically, it moves closer to ritual than the taiko, establishing a strict congregation of audience against celebrants on the stage, and evokes restrained approval rather than spontaneous cheers.

The Weill Arts

Almost a year after talk of a cabaret revival became passé, and the scene itself had appeared to have stabilised and hit a rut, interesting things have started again. Linden Tree may come from a musical theatre background, and Joyce Falconer is better known as Roisin in River City, but their take on Kurt Weill brings back the Weimar master to the heart of vaudeville.

Falconer’s one woman stand is a remarkable series of changes: from croaking whore during Alabama Song to hopeful teenager for My Ship, Falconer’s selection of tunes ranges across Weill’s career. His earlier, well known collaborations with Brecht – two versions of Mack the Knife get the number back to its psychotic roots and away from the bland jazz it became under Sinatra – gave way to more playful Broadway show-stoppers when he moved to America: yet Weill’s sense of melody retained a sardonic humour and melancholic.

Linden Tree proclaim their mission clearly: to bring cabaret back into the respectable theatre fold. Despite the dark eroticism of some numbers – there’s a touch of burlesque to the story of Jenny – these interpretations are heavy on the theatricality. Falconer switches roles with ease, her voice most suited to the heart-broken numbers and her easy charisma allows her to quickly engage the audience. While the show remains a compilation of superb tunes, it is in the Scots translations of German originals that the savagery of Brecht’s genius comes to light and the striking relevance of Weill’s cabaret is brought to light. It’s an entertaining hour, but with flashes of sudden, mercurial intensity.