Tom Fleming Centre,
Stewart's Melville College, Edinburgh
3 stars
There's something
joyful about this double bill of Moliere comic miniatures, adapted
here for Lung Ha's Theatre Company in typically scurrilous fashion by
Morna Pearson. This may have something to do with MJ McCarthy and Kim
Moore's jaunty accordion-led soundtrack that plays as the audience
enter, or it may be the bustle of the cast who welcome them into
designer Karen Tennant's beautifully draped world. Either way,
there's a sense of period-costumed liberation at play, both in the
first piece, The Seductive Countess, and in it's follow-up, The
Flying Doctor.
The Seductive Countess
finds the protege of a vain and selfish lady persuading her Viscount
true love to see off her suitors, while The Flying Doctor has a pair
of bumbling servants role-play a couple of quacks in order to prevent
an unseemly marriage. Pared down to just seventy-five minutes
overall, Maria Oller's production allows Lung Ha's regular large
ensemble cast to have fun with Pearson's material with some
surprisingly deft interplay in both pieces. Teri Robb as Julie in the
first play gives a particularly deadpan turn, while there is much fun
to be had with the healing powers of urine samples in The Flying
Doctor, as the below stairs double act knock it back like fine wine.
While the ornate
surroundings of Stewart's Melville adds to the overall atmosphere of
the show, it's a puzzle why it isn't being seen in a regular theatre.
Now more than ever, companies such as Lung Ha's need to be seen in
the mainstream rather than appearing to have been sidelined in this
way.
The Herald, April 12th 2013
ends
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