Summerhall, Edinburgh
Three stars
It's telling that a
climate of austerity has fostered a thriving alternative cabaret
scene that recalls the early 1980s. Unfortunately, the same era's
politics of prejudice and greed have also made a comeback. Both
trends have inspired a rash of independent shoe-string theatre
companies to embrace such a loose-knit aesthetic and apply it to work
that is instinctively dissenting in tone.
Edinburgh's Tightlaced
Theatre have done exactly that in Susanna Mulvihill's production of
her own all-singing, all-dancing extravaganza that looks to Berlin's
Weimar era for inspiration, but which at times sounds chillingly of
the moment. The setting is Anke's club on the day that Adolf Hitler
has seized power. With Anke and her staff who double up as the
night's acts serving drinks to the audience sat at round wooden
tables, what follows feels like eavesdropping on assorted intrigues
while the all night party goes on.
While hostess Simone
introduces a series of subtly satirical routines performed by her
'Ratlings', who include Anke's wannabe starlet daughter, Marieke,
American newshound William soaks up the scene at a table shared with
his latest flame Birgit. When Anke's Nazi-smitten son Dieter shows up
with his superior to survey the decadence with Captain Voehner, it
marks the last gasp for a microcosm of what will follow in the world
at large.
While the ghost of
Cabaret looms large, Mulvihill's play remains a boisterous and
acerbic look at how how hard times can cause people to look for
scapegoats as they fall for extremist ideologies. Only the
distraction of running several scenes concurrently mars an otherwise
highly-charged political burlesque which at times feels dangerously
close to home.
The Herald, January 25th 2014
ends
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