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
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