Tron Theatre, Glasgow 3 stars If Adam and Eve had scromphed down home-grown avocadoes instead of apples, things might have turned out a whole lot rosier in the garden. Or at least that’s the impression you get from the domestic Eden built by the biblically named Ade, Kane and Evelyn in Sylvia Dow’s new play, lovingly directed by Selma Dimitrijevic for the London-based Greyscale company in association with Stellar Quines. A couple, giddy on the possibilities of each other, fall together, set up home and play happy families, knee-deep in a forest of plants and acquired memories that gradually fill up their room. The latter is depicted via an extended wordless sequence that would put some furniture removal firms to shame, as the pair embark on a great adventure of magic moments and endless games of Scrabble. Things only darken with a seemingly estranged prodigal’s return and a death in the family that comes gift-wrapped. All this is implied rather than told in a very particular aesthetic employed by Dow and Dimitrijevic on Oliver Townsend’s pin-board set, from the way the actors loll about eyeing up the audience as they enter while one of them strums a guitar, to the final, multi-lingual, life-affirming chorus. It’s an aesthetic that falls just the right side of quirky in what is essentially an extended meditation on life, death and the love that clutters up the place in-between the two. If Dow’s ideas are big, there’s an essential warmth to the performances of Jon Foster, Andrew Gourley and Emilie Patry. This is accentuated by Scott Twynholm’s lovely score in a play that recognises that, whatever happens, life goes on regardless. The Herald, September 7th 2012 ends
Myra McFadyen – Actress Born January 12th 1956; died October 18th 2024 Myra McFadyen, who has died aged 68, was an actress who brought a mercurial mix of lightness and depth to her work on stage and screen. Playwright and artistic director of the Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, David Greig, called McFadyen “an utterly transformative, shamanic actor who could change a room and command an audience with a blink”. Citizens’ Theatre artistic director Dominic Hill described McFadyen’s portrayal of Puck in his 2019 production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre in London as “funny, mischievous and ultimately heartbreaking.” For many, McFadyen will be most recognisable from Mamma Mia!, the smash hit musical based around ABBA songs. McFadyen spent two years on the West End in Phyllida Lloyd’s original 1999 stage production, and was in both film offshoots. Other big screen turns included Rob Roy (1995) and Our Ladies (2019), both directed by Mi...
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