Skip to main content

Stuff

Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh
Three stars

Everybody can be prone to putting their life in boxes. Magda, the elderly Croatian émigré in Sylvia Dow’s new hour-long play, takes such a notion to extremes in a show that lays bare the emotional detritus we gather up along life’s way, using those boxes as a fortress of self-protection as we go. At some point, however, there has to be a clear-out. In Magda’s case it takes an intervention from social worker Jackie to open the door to a new-ish kind of life. This involves a reunion with Magda’s estranged daughter Chrissie, and above all a casting out of the figure of her dead mother, an opera singer who was killed in the Balkan war.

All of this is woven into a handsome looking and heart-felt production by Muriel Romanes for her and Dow’s new Sylvian Productions company. At its centre is a moving central performance from Carol Ann Crawford as Magda, who is given ample support by Romana Abercrombie as Chrissie, Pauline Lockhart as Jackie and a fine-voiced Rosemary Nairne as Magda’s lost mother. There is magic here too by way of an ingenious set of boxes designed by John and Jeanine Byrne, which house beautifully constructed miniatures of the clutter packing Magda’s mind. A baby grand piano, a war-scarred landscape and scattered chairs are all in the mix.

Despite such care and attention to details like this, at the moment it feels like Magda’s transformation happens so rapidly that Dow’s play is more of a well-drawn sketch of a show in need of going much deeper below the surface. There is much to praise what there is right now, however, in what is effectively a stylised tone poem that cuts to the chase in a story that highlights an illness rarely put under the spotlight.

The Herald, November 7th 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