THE STANTONS PRESENT: LA CIRQUE DE MUERTA

As I enter into my dotage, the idea of a band who blend American folk, gypsy pop and sea-shanties has become increasingly attractive. If they then decide to promote their new album by staging a theatre performance about a Circus of Death, they probably become my favourite band of the week. 

Using the title track of the album, Cirque de Muerta is a performance that goes behind the scenes at a circus with a sinister clown - apparently, there are lions and children in close proximity. That's probably where the death comes into it.

Let's have a look at the press release....

Local writer / director Claire Wood has constructed a piece of theatre that sits around the edges of the songs. It’s designed to complement the band’s melodies and lyrics, adding a back story that knits the album together.

Ringmaster Alex tells tales of magic, mystery and wonder that enthral his audiences and his fellow circus performers. But are his silvery words enough to persuade his performers to turn a blind eye to the evil being perpetrated on their doorstep?

Lead singer Cassi, a prize prima donna who doubles as a trapeze artist, is on the verge of leaving the band and leaving the circus. Stamping her peculiar brand of bitchery on those around her, will their efforts to persuade her to leave be quite enough to tip the balance and sever the ties of love that bind her to her familiar world?

Alexei the clown has a terrible secret. He wants out and he has a plan. To leave would break his heart and that of long-term love and ex-geisha, Sachiko. But to stay means adding to his ever-growing collection of the buttons of the children whom he helps to their grisly end. 

In brief: a deadly clown, a former geisha, a trapeze artist... if this comes from a single song, I am guessing The Stantons like a spot of narrative heavy lyricism. I ought to insert the inevitable joke here about it sounding like a Saturday Night round my house...

The performance calls for seven actors; six adults and a child. Two of the characters are taken from the band, female vocalist Cari Silver and founding member/lyricist Neil Colquhoun (A Very Secret History, Calvin, Baby Tiger, Tigerfest). As well as being experienced names in the music scene in Scotland, they’ve acted previously in Edinburgh Fringe productions directed by Claire Wood.

The other actors also make regular appearances on the stages of Edinburgh. Chris Allan and Hilary Davies perform with equestrian act, Les Amis D’Onno. Matt Davies and Larry Weil have performed in productions across the UK. And 10 year old Iain Goldie made his most recent stage appearance as one of the two princes in Richard III.

He came to a bad end in that, too, I guess.

The whole concept of a circus feels increasingly archaic in a world saturated with CGI and special effects. And yet there is still something hypnotic about a live performance, whether from a band or a group of performers.

I bet they put this in to keep me sweet. But it is true. You can't beat a live show, and if you add rock'n'roll to the theatre, you get the primal energy of electric noise and the intelligent structure brought by dramatic structure...

Toying with the idea of the real and the make-believe, talented musician and film-maker Fraser Macdermid has put together a collection of multi-media musings that complement the action on stage. Drawing on archive footage from circuses along with original film shot to complement the on-stage action, Fraser has treated the film footage to enhance the heightened reality of the circus ring.

The resulting production is a multi-media extravaganza of live performance, music and film.

In a world ever more willing to put its faith in special effects, La Cirque de Muerta explores the stories we tell to avoid confronting the truth. 

The Stantons Present La Cirque de Muerta. 

Saturday 22 June, doors 7pm, entry £10+bf.

Electric Circus, 36 Market Street, Edinburgh 0131 226 4224.

The Prelude

It is beginning, isn't it?

Gramophone Theatre race between shows, 2012

The first few previews are arriving in my Inbox. At this stage, they are optimistic, positive. In about a week's time, we'll see the first articles pondering whether the whole thing represents the apogee of art or its decadent nadir.

I wouldn't mind, but Glasgow has festivals on all the time. Why is the Fringe given such weight?

It's the most wonderful, eclectic celebration of performance in Europe.

It's a tourist trap. It's the avant-garde spirit.

A note to London magazines and newspapers: I am available to write an empty-headed analysis of The Edinburgh Fringe Festival following any of these ideas. Why not have someone who actually has been to the city outside of August do it this year?

Well, time to start using cut'n'paste. Here come the press releases....

Latitude 2013

For the past four years, being far too old for most music festivals, I have made Latitude my weekend-under-canvas of choice. I explain my presence in the mosh-pit at the front by claiming that I am trying to check out the acts that might turn up at The Fringe, and spend most of my time in the cabaret or theatre tents.

Despite doing a regular radio show, I have considerable anxiety about keeping up with the kids. Then, when I hear what the kids are listening to, I realise that the music that was once my rebellious youth is now classic rock.

Latitude 2013 is shaping up nicely: they have just announced that soul legend Bobby Womack is the special guest (and he was a classic when I was an upstart), and the Balletboyz are throwing down. Nina Conti, a rare act who fits into both the comedy and things-I-like category (her puppetry is darker and sharper than most supposedly radical stand-ups).

And the man who introduced me to cabaret, Mr Des O'Connor, is doing a turn. I notice that he is next to Empress Stah on the bill. Hopefully, they'll remember to put out the "no children" sign for this line-up. I have seen some odd sights on that stage, and I am not sure toddlers called Tarquin are really ready for them.

Robin Ince is doing a literary slot - let's see if he can convince me that he is the cleverest man in the godless universe this time, and there's a whole strand dedicated to neuroscience and sex.


Festivals have come a long way since we threw bottles at Metallica for not being metal enough.....

THURSDAY 18^TH JULY – SUNDAY 21^ST JULY 2013

HENHAM PARK, SOUTHWOLD, SUFFOLK

The Gramophones Theatre Company@ The Scottish Storytelling Centre- 30th May

I have a soft spot for the Scottish Storytelling Centre. This might be because it showcases a performance art that is accessible to all ages and interests, yet retains a huge influence on contemporary experimental practice: both Rantin and The Riot of Spring (entries in the recent NTS Auteurs season) reveal this heritage. It might be because their cafe has a fresh atmosphere and good cakes. 

The SSC has a habit of putting on intriguing shows. Next up, The Gramophones Theatre Company with the tale of their "daring and unusual journey from one end of Great Britain to the other on as many different forms of transport as possible with only one pound per mile." The subsequent show at the 2012 Fringe End to End was a five star success...

Leaving aside the value of stars at the Fringe, the adventure of three women crossing the country at bargain rates is another example of how performance has long since abandoned the predictable "write a script, act a script" approach. The Gramophones are playful, witty and smart. If they begun on a whim, they soon found plenty to celebrate about the nation they were crossing.

A Big Load of Sex

Once upon a time, it was easy to review theatre. Start off with a quick plot synopsis, hand out praise and demerits to the various parts of the company, tag on a quick personal opinion and give it three non-committal stars.

Then post-modernism came along and started asking awkward questions about the nature of objectivity. The grand vision of Aeschylus, in which the very universe had a moral centre, was replaced by competing narratives, none of which could be called definitive. Even news journalism is challenged by the application of analysis that detects personal bias.

Plays started to get trickier. The classic creative process – a script, a director, a group of actors being told what to do and say – dissolved into a series of alternative strategies. This evolution opened up the stage to companies like Mammalian Diving Reflex, who are interested in using non-professional performers, devise a script in collaboration with them, and present an event that is about community as much as aesthetic display.

And so, All The Sex I Have Ever Had. Five people on stage reveal their life histories, with the emphasis on sexual interactions. Having signed a declaration not to “gossip” about the information relayed, it’s not right to say which character was promiscuous, or divorced, or even if any of them were. If I were not already hobbled by the self-doubt precipitated by age and a recognition of my own inevitable subjectivity, this contract cuts away much of the descriptive function of this review.

Fortunately, this reduces the task to a simple critique of the format (five speakers reading from a script, reducing their complex lives to the quality of a series of Facebook updates) and the apparent intention. Since the advertising made it clear that Sex concerned old people chatting about nookie, it’s probably something to do with making sex a legitimate topic for discussion, and undermining the prejudice that seniors are an alien race who didn’t ever have sex except for procreation, like your momma.

I was moved, in a vague and uncomfortable manner. That’s too easy: five strangers revealing their life story – unless it happens in a bar, then it’s irritating. I was annoyed, charming, never disgusted (there was generally a lack of detail on the sex acts, but it’s unlikely I can ever be shocked now that I have the Internet). Some of the characters offered dubious justifications for their antics. The most disturbing aspect was the way that the incidents were recounted. There was little emotional depth, sexual partners came and went. None of the characters were asked to assess their experiences, except in a rather wistful epilogue.

In the current social context, in which privacy is being replaced by shallow disclosure on-line, Sex, feels like the perfect play for the Facebook age.

A chain of sexual encounters, episodic, catalogued by year, notches on bedposts or amusing anecdotes: it reflects a commodification of experience, served up as something between entertainment and education. The audience is left to draw conclusions. The tone, like a therapy session, is non-judgmental.  

At this point, it is appropriate to commend the bravery of the performers and the skill of the team who helped them to remember and catalogue their lives. The show concludes, leaving questions about the way that lives are shaped by events, that personality is the product of opportunity and experience.

Then, it’s worth observing that, given the nature of The Arches’ audience, this performance had non-performers performing to an audience of performers. There’s a little irony, and perhaps a subtle inversion of the usual theatrical dynamic.

It’s all very emotional. It isn’t profound. Finding out that seniors had sex isn’t a revelation. The dry tone of the confessions refuses to connect the events into a personal history, or encourage any connection between the performers. Perhaps representing sexuality in a format other than the erotic or pornographic is enough.

Trying to fit a work like this into any sort of theatrical tradition is a challenge – it has roots in community theatre, amateur dramatics, devised performance, they do read from a script and Rob Jones did a fine job as a DJ-MC hybrid, hinting at cabaret. But the usual parameters – good acting, fine direction that interprets the script – are deliberately avoided. And if a work is trying to open up discussion, making the audience sign a non-disclosure agreement undermines the process.

I just kind of stop….