EDINBURGH COLUMN 3
La Femme Est Morte, or Why I
Should Not F%!# My Son /
Six Women Standing In Front Of A White Wall / Subway
Various venues, Edinburgh
August, 2007
Just as every year brings "West End in crisis?" stories, the
corresponding annual phenomenon up north each August is "Has the
Edinburgh bubble burst?" And every year figures are adduced to
show that International Festival and Fringe alike are doing better than
ever, if not in numbers of visitors then in numbers of tickets or
amount taken at the box office.... whatever index is handiest. This
year, though, the spinmeisters may be harder pressed than usual to find
triumph.
From major venue managers to cabbies, the word is that despite a record
2050 shows in the Fringe programme alone (never mind late additions),
this year has been perceptibly quieter. Weekend business has been
solid, but the drop-off during the week has been marked; I personally
noticed a palpable shift in gear, far greater than expected, between
last Sunday and Monday evenings in the same venues. William
Burdett-Coutts, who runs the Assembly venue empire, has gone public
about the slowdown in his own fiefdom, which last year attracted more
visitors to its shows alone than either the entire Edinburgh Book
Festival or the Military Tattoo, and this year has added three new
addresses to its sphere of influence. Some attribute this effect to a
decrease in American visitors as the dollar continues to give poor
value against the pound. Many cite ticket prices, whose increase has
outpaced that of the size of the Fringe; at £10-£15 a show
now, they are approximately double those of a decade ago. It is much
harder either to dedicate yourself to paying for several shows a day,
or to steel yourself to take punts on unknown shows, with such amounts
at stake.
Another frequent complaint is that the Fringe, and in particular its
comedy component, has become a huge trade fair. I do not think that in
itself is necessarily a problem, but it has contributed to an
increasing corporatisation. The "supervenues" hold greater sway than
ever; when they can add no more performance spaces to their central
sites, they spawn Mini-Mes elsewhere around the city. As I write this
column, I have seen upwards of 70 Fringe shows in more than 30
different spaces, but every one of those has been run by one of six
venue empires: the Traverse, Assembly, Pleasance, Underbelly, Gilded
Balloon and C. Established venues at Hill Street and the powerhouse of
physical/visual theatre, Aurora Nova, have this year come under the
Assembly umbrella... partly, perhaps, because much of Burdett-Coutts'
main George Street venue is under threat of being redeveloped into
shops by the city council in the next couple of years. But the overall
effect is to concentrate Fringe-going as a whole, and in particular
media attention, on to a handful of enterprises.
To be frank, it can be hard to get away when there is so much in those
locations that demands attention, whether because of quality or
perceived importance, and you only have one pair of eyes. In little
more than 24 hours I have caught up with three remarkable offerings. La Femme Est Morte, or Why I Should Not
F%!# My Son [sic]
(Pleasance Dome) tells the Greek tragedy of Phaedra's infatuation with
her stepson Hippolytus using text from Seneca, Georges Bataille,
General George S. Patton and others as well as original dialogue. The
Shalimar company locate the story firmly in a contemporary American
culture where numerous conflicting idioms and values jostle up against
each other: honour, duty, country, celebrity, power, image. Just as all
kinds of fame are now being reduced to a common level, the Greek-style
chorus comments on the action by singing rock and pop numbers such as
"2 Become 1" and "Back For Good". It is satire that fires on all
cylinders, and makes The Shalimar the most exciting young American
company I have seen up here so far this century.
Six Women Standing In Front Of A
White Wall (C soco) is exactly what it says, is also described
as a "living installation" and is one of those weird shows that make
London sub-editors shake their heads in pity and mutter about "the
Edinburgh bends". The women – in red dresses, hair dishevelled, stark
white-and-red make-up, looking like half a dozen drag versions of The
Cure's Robert Smith – stand, writhing in slow agony or near-catatonia,
until members of the audience finally respond to the notices in front
of them proclaiming, "Please Do Touch". Then they begin to smile, to
respond physically, perhaps play mirror-games, even embrace the punters
who have given them such energy simply by perceiving them. This
30-minute piece by Australian company Little Dove Theatre Art is like
watching flowers bloom, or like an exaggerated version of the way we
all respond to the attention of another, any other. It is joyous and a
little heartbreaking.
Vanishing Point's production Subway
(Traverse 3) is one of the gems in an otherwise disappointing Traverse
year. Accompanied by a live Kosovan band, performers Sandy Grierson (as
Patrick Dougan) and Rosalind Sydney (as everyone else) evoke an
Edinburgh twenty or so years from now. It is a dystopia, but one barely
a breath removed from the present: spot fines for smoking in the
street, gentrification and commercialisation driving residents out of
their own neighbourhoods, rising sea levels and so on. And amid the
grimness, the eternal relationships persist: the son and father who
cannot quite communicate, the old friends growing reluctantly apart,
even the different walks adopted depending on what kind of signal you
want to give off. And running through it all is a deep and passionate
sense of place: of Edinburgh present and future, Scottish and
international.
Written for the Financial
Times.
Copyright © Ian Shuttleworth; all rights
reserved.
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