Skip to main content

Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2018 Theatre Reviews 2 - Huff - CanadaHub @ King's Hall, Four Stars / Ulster American, Traverse Theatre, Four Stars

Huff begins with a suicide attempt. This sets the tone for Cliff Cardinal’s fearless solo look at the underbelly of Canada’s indigenous community. What emerges through Cardinal’s dynamic and discomforting tale of three brothers is a picture of disenfranchisement, brutalisation, inter-familial abuse and collective dysfunction. This is told through the voice of Wind and his kid brother Huff, feral little punks getting high on anything they can.

Cardinal is a human whirlwind throughout Karin Randoja’s production, originally presented by Native Earth Performing Arts and co-produced here by Cunning Concepts and Creations as part of Summerhall’s CanadaHub strand. Beyond geographical specifics, there is a recognisable universality at play. This is what happens to marginalised communities the world over. When Wind decides to live, it’s the first messy step in recognising that it doesn’t have to be that way.

In Ulster American, Hollywood A-lister Jay and right-on London Theatre director Leigh meet to discuss the forthcoming production of Ruth’s new play. As they freeform ideas dominated by Jay’s largesse, boundaries are crossed in recognisably troubling ways. When Ruth arrives, things take an even more problematic turn in an increasingly frenetic debate on cultural identity that stems from a mixture of ignorance, sentiment and blind loyalty.

David Ireland’s explosive new work ruthlessly exposes a world that likes to think itself edgy, when in fact it rarely goes beyond a wet liberal consensus. The extreme farce that erupts is an unflinching assault on political presumption, in-grained ambition and desperate careerists willing to kiss the orifice that allows them to scramble their way to the top.

The trio are played with turbo-charged abandon in Gareth Nicholls’ Traverse company production by Darrell D’Silva as Jay, Robert Jack as Leigh and Lucianne McEvoy as Ruth. The play’s punchline might not be subtle, but it is necessarily deadly in its execution.

 The Herald, August 9th 2018

ends
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ceildh

Tron Theatre, Glasgow Three stars
One kiss is all it takes for everyone to understand each other in Catriona Lexy Campbell and Mairi Sine Campbell’s new play. Linguistically that is, as ancient and modern are brought to rollickingly intimate life by the Gaelic-based Theatre Gu Leor (Theatre Galore) company in the Tron’s Vic Bar en route to an extensive cross-Scotland tour. The set-up is the sort of ghastly tartan-draped corporate function whose perma-grinning hostess Lisa makes bogus claims of preserving culture while blatantly intent on flogging it off to the highest bidder. Think McWetherspoon by way of Trumpageddon.
With the audience ushered into a cabaret table arrangement by Lisa’s step-daughter Eilidh and serenaded by Eddie’s oh-so-couthy accordion playing, the dirt from Harris is unearthed along with a bottle of David Beckham-branded whisky. This causes the corporate shindig to be disrupted on an epic scale by seventeenth century poet Mairi Ruadh. Which is when both the kissing an…
Post a Comment
Read more

The Duke

Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh Four stars
Shon Dale-Jones seems like a very nice chap. You can tell from the way he welcomes each member of the audience into the theatre, shaking them by the hand to a soundtrack of energising 1960s feel-good soul. Such a personable approach helps create a warm and intimate atmosphere, so when he sits at a desk with only a laptop, a volume control and us for company, you can’t help but be charmed from the start of this hour-long foray, both into his own fantastical mind as well as the discursive set of first-world contradictions it lets loose into the world.
It begins with a Royal Worcester porcelain figure of the Duke of Wellington on horseback, which Dale-Jones’ dad bought in 1974 for £750. This would make it worth more than £8,000 in today’s money if his mum hadn’t broken it while dusting. This is just one more thing for Dale-Jones to think about as he attempts to apply a script doctor’s ruthless critique onto a film script he’s been working on for a deca…
Post a Comment
Read more

This House

Festival Theatre, Edinburgh Four stars
Five years is a long time in politics just as it is in the theatre. When James Graham’s epic reimagining of one of the most pivotal eras in late twentieth century British democracy first appeared in 2012, its depiction of the aftermath of the 1974 hung parliament in Westminster chimed with a then current coalition. Half a decade and a couple of referendums on, Graham’s dramatic whizz through to 1979’s successful vote of no confidence in the Labour government now looks like a warning.
Jeremy Herrin and Jonathan O’Boyle’s touring revival of a production first seen at the National Theatre begins with both sides of the House marching en masse in their grey suits and twin-sets down the aisles of the auditorium before cutting a well-choreographed rug in formation. As the Labour and Tory whips mark out their territory away from the chamber, this proves to be one of the few moments of unity in a breathless yarn that picks at the old-school gentleman’s agree…
Post a Comment
Read more