Bedlam Theatre, Edinburgh
3 stars
David Greig’s extravagantly titled post-millennial play arrived at what can be seen in retrospect as a crucial historical no-mans-land. The end of the Cold War and apparent death of ideology had left a generation in a self-absorbed funk. Protest politics had yet to be bombed back into life, and the hollow vacuum at the heart of the global village was summed up by the influx of pole-dancers and prostitutes from the former Eastern bloc who believed western ways would save them.
Or it least it seemed that way here, as the Cosmonaut of the title and his comrade float in a limbo born of regime change. Back on earth, a civil servant is engulfed by mid-life crises a la Reggie Perrin. His speech-therapist wife attempts to give voice to a patient before falling in with a French UFO hunter, a Norwegian peace-keeping envoy attempts to buy the world, and poor Natasja keeps her eye on the stars her father listlessly orbits.
A brave choice then, for director Nicola Cross, whose University of Edinburgh English Literature Department production possesses an inherent hunger to grasp the play’s ideas of making connections in a fragmented world. While there’s often more enthusiasm than depth to the youthful portrayals, there is too an appreciation of the play’s funny side via the increasingly absurd, ennui-laden sparring between the comedy Cosmonauts. Dangling from The Bedlam’s roof, they recall the similarly spaced-out wasters of John Carpenter’s languid 1970s sci-fi satire, Dark Star. Cosmonaut’s dry take on life, the universe and everything demands much, but is here the best of all worlds.
The Herald, March 2nd 2007
ends
3 stars
David Greig’s extravagantly titled post-millennial play arrived at what can be seen in retrospect as a crucial historical no-mans-land. The end of the Cold War and apparent death of ideology had left a generation in a self-absorbed funk. Protest politics had yet to be bombed back into life, and the hollow vacuum at the heart of the global village was summed up by the influx of pole-dancers and prostitutes from the former Eastern bloc who believed western ways would save them.
Or it least it seemed that way here, as the Cosmonaut of the title and his comrade float in a limbo born of regime change. Back on earth, a civil servant is engulfed by mid-life crises a la Reggie Perrin. His speech-therapist wife attempts to give voice to a patient before falling in with a French UFO hunter, a Norwegian peace-keeping envoy attempts to buy the world, and poor Natasja keeps her eye on the stars her father listlessly orbits.
A brave choice then, for director Nicola Cross, whose University of Edinburgh English Literature Department production possesses an inherent hunger to grasp the play’s ideas of making connections in a fragmented world. While there’s often more enthusiasm than depth to the youthful portrayals, there is too an appreciation of the play’s funny side via the increasingly absurd, ennui-laden sparring between the comedy Cosmonauts. Dangling from The Bedlam’s roof, they recall the similarly spaced-out wasters of John Carpenter’s languid 1970s sci-fi satire, Dark Star. Cosmonaut’s dry take on life, the universe and everything demands much, but is here the best of all worlds.
The Herald, March 2nd 2007
ends
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