Matthew Lenton

Love the Sinner

17/05/23

Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh

The seven deadly sins have been a source of inspiration for many writers over the centuries. This fabulous interpretation from poet/performer Imogen Stirling gives them a powerful contemporary relevance. Conceived during lockdown, it’s an assured piece of gig theatre, which takes those seven infamous traits and reimagines them as everyday people, living in a contemporary city beset by a near-apocalyptic rainstorm. We’re in Glasgow and the Clyde is threatening to burst its banks.

It’s here that our protagonist, Sloth, finally stirs herself from the bed she’s been lying in for far too long and ventures out onto the rain-lashed streets to attend a party hosted by her friend, Gluttony. Stirling’s playful and incisive words evoke a whole series of familiar tropes – the social-media obsessed millennial, the guilt-afflicted porn addict, the business-centred entrepreneur intent on looking good at all times. But these are more than just stock characters: Stirling’s astute words skewer them, imbuing each of them with a cinematic clarity, bringing them to life as she reveals their flaws and strengths.

This is by no means a solo endeavour. Stirling’s verbal observations are accompanied by musician Sonia Killmann’s ominous soundscapes. She sits front of stage, conjuring pulsing, vibrant music and occasionally lending her vocals to Stirling as they sing together in lilting harmony. Behind the performers, Ellie Thompson’s enthralling video and projection designs offer atmospheric images of the city at night and tantalising glimpses of out-of-focus characters reacting to Stirling’s monologue. Matthew Lenton directs the whole endeavour with great skill, helming the piece to its powerful and frenetic conclusion.

As the last chords fade, I find myself applauding enthusiastically with the rest of the packed audience and wishing there could be some kind of encore – but how would you follow this?

Love the Sinner is a mesmerising piece of theatre. Catch it if you can.

4. 6 stars

Philip Caveney

Love Beyond (Act of Remembrance)

11/02/23

Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh

Love Beyond (Act of Remembrance) is billed as ‘a love story – but not a typical one’. And yet this play, by Ramesh Meyyappan is, like all tales of love and loss, at once unique and ubiquitous, quirky and commonplace.

We meet Harry (Meyyappan) as he moves into a care home. He has dementia, and he’s also deaf. His new carer, May (Elicia Daly), is sweet and attentive, but she doesn’t know sign language, although she is ‘going on a course’. Naturally, Harry’s disorientation is heightened by the pair’s inability to communicate. Matthew Lenton’s skilful direction ensures the audience is drawn in, as those of us who can’t sign miss much of what Harry says, while some of those who are deaf presumably miss May’s words. It’s nicely done: we’re all given enough information to understand what’s going on, while also experiencing a little of Harry’s alienation from his new home, and May’s frustration at not being able to do her job.

The set (by Becky Minto) comprises three moveable screens. At first these are mirrors, magnifying Harry’s discomfort: the reflection of the audience staring at him adds to the sense that he no longer has a private life, or much autonomy at all. Cleverly, the screens are also transparent: lit from behind, they reveal Harry’s jumble of memories. We get to know the young Harry (Rinkoo Barpaga) and his true love, Elise (Amy Kennedy): we see them meet and fall in love; we see their joy and their sorrow, their prime and their decline. There’s something spellbinding about the way these images appear and disappear, and Harry’s yearning for Elise is palpable and heartbreaking.

The strength of this piece lies in the movement, which is precise, slow and beguiling – a realisation of the phrase ‘poetry in motion’. There is a gentle earnestness here that defies cynicism, so that a simple swimming mime becomes a thing of beauty; the act of putting on slippers becomes profound.

Composer David Paul Jones’s soundtrack is integral to the piece. The music is by turns melodic and jarring, light and intense, reflecting Harry’s inner turmoil just as clearly as the mirrors.

This year’s Manipulate Festival has thrown up some absolute gems – and this is one of them.

4.4 stars

Susan Singfield

Theatre Bouquets 2019

Bouquets&Brickbats

Bouquets&Brickbats

Bouquets&Brickbats

It’s time again to reflect on the year that has passed, and to reconsider all the wonderful (and not so wonderful) theatre we have seen. What lingers in the memory, cuts through this crowded arena even after many months? Which ideas still keep us up at night; what audacious direction still makes us smile? Here – in chronological order – are our picks of 2019.

Ulster American – Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh (writer – David Ireland; director – Gareth Nicholls

The Dark Carnival – Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh (writer/director – Matthew Lenton)

What Girls Are Made Of – Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh (writer – Cora Bissett; director Orla O’Loughlin)

Electrolyte – Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh (writer – James Meteyard; director Donnacadh O’Briain)

The Duchess (of Malfi) – Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh (writer/director – Zinnie Harris)

Endless Second – Edinburgh Festival Fringe (Theo Toksvig-Stewart/Madeleine Gray/Camilla Gurtler/ Cut the Cord)

Who Cares? – Edinburgh Festival Fringe (Jessica Temple/Lizzie Mounter/Luke Grant/ Matt Woodhead/ LUNG & The Lowry)

Shine – Edinburgh Festival Fringe (Olivier Leclair/Tiia-Mari Mäkinen/Hippana Theatre & From Start to Finnish)

Solaris – Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh (writer – David Greig; director – Matthew Lutton)

Clybourne Park –  Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh (writer – Bruce Norris; director – Michael Emans)

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein – King’s Theatre, Edinburgh (writer – Rona Munro; director – Patricia Benecke)

Goldilocks and the Three Bears – King’s Theatre, Edinburgh (writers – Allan Stewart & Alan McHugh; director – Ed Curtis

Susan Singfield & Philip Caveney

The Dark Carnival

06/03/19

Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh

The Dark Carnival is all about death. If that sounds a bit off-putting, let me add that it somehow contrives to be a great big warm hug of a production (all about death). It’s brilliantly written by Matthew Lenton and gloriously performed by a fourteen-strong cast. Throw in the excellent Kurt Weill-ish songs of the charismatic Biff Smith, plus the music of urban folk band A New International and you have something that is as close to unique as it’s possible to be in a contemporary theatre. Oh, did I mention that the witty script is delivered entirely in verse? Well, it is – and that’s quite a feat all on its own.

The action mostly takes place below ground in Dickinson’s Brae cemetery, Glasgow, where many of the inhabitants enter and exit from their respective coffins, but there’s also a raised proscenium arch which gives occasional glimpses into what’s happening above the soil. It even offers tantalising glimpses of the doorway to heaven, though – due to austerity – that door is now kept well and truly locked, guarded by a fag-smoking, wine-imbibing angel (Natalie McCleary), intent on keeping out the riff-raff.  There’s a clever socialist edge to the narrative and I love the observation that the only deceased who have any hope of lingering in the memories of the living are those that have statues and shrines devoted to them.

We are greeted first by a narrator (Elicia Daly), who has some delightful interplay with members of the audience – Fraser, I’m sure she was exaggerating your exploits! – before introducing us to the other characters. There’s Mrs Eugenia Mark (Ann Louise Ross), a whisky-swilling Victorian lady; Major Montgomery Toast (Harry Ward), who has traded his military exploits for an electric guitar; and there’s the restless John (Malcolm Cumming), who still has unfinished business above ground. We are also introduced to tragic new member of the Necropolitans, Little Annie (Olivia Barrowclough, who uncannily inhabits the persona of a bewildered young child with total conviction).

There’s so much here to enjoy that I find myself increasingly dazzled by the scale and ambition of the piece, which has been drilled to perfection. The design, the lighting, the sound: it’s all spot on. The creators describe it as a ‘music and theatre spectacle’ and I’d say that pretty much hits the coffin nail on the skull. Suffice to say that my attention doesn’t wander for a moment and I leave the theatre humming the final song.

On the night we attend, The Traverse is pretty rammed but, if there are still tickets to be had, grab them now before the carnival moves on in the direction of Dundee.

Don’t miss this. It’s a spirited production in every sense of the word.

5 stars

Philip Caveney

 

 

 

Charlie Sonata

02/05/17

Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh

Some playwrights tell their stories in straightforward terms – others prefer to take a more mysterious route, leaving you with several unanswered questions – and Douglas Maxwell’s Charlie Sonata falls very definitely into the latter category. And it’s all the more intriguing for it – if more difficult to pin down in a review. The play, brilliantly directed by Matthew Lenton, is an enchanting, magical tale that flirts with seemingly unconnected ideas: the concept of time travel, a famous fairy story and the era of Britpop.

Chick (Sandy Grierson), a hard drinking but immensely affable drifter, returns from London to his Scottish hometown when he hears that the teenage daughter of his old pal, Gary (Kevin Lennon), is in a coma following an accident. Chick hopes to reconnect with Gary –  and with his other best friend, Jackson (Robert Jack), but events keep getting in his way and he continually finds his thoughts shunted unexpectedly back to earlier, happier days at Stirling University, when the three young lads had no responsibilities. Jackson is fond of expounding his “non-negotiable” theories about time-travel. Chick is about to discover how negotiable they really are.

Pretty soon, Chick is back in the present day, hanging around the hospital, where he encounters mysterious ‘bad fairy’ Meredith (Meg Fraser), who is struggling with her own issues. Can she and Chick work together to release Gary’s daughter, Audrey (Lauren Grace), from her ‘Sleeping Beauty’ coma?

Nothing here is ever quite what it seems and, as the narrative switches effortlessly backwards and forwards in time, the scenes are linked by a commentary by The Narrator (Robbie Gordon), which adds to the story’s mythical feel. Grierson plays Chick with just the right mixture of vulnerability and intoxication – I’ve rarely been so convinced by an onstage ‘drunk’ – while the inventive production design by Ana Inés Jabares-Pita and the ethereal lighting by Kai Fischer, keep creating moments of real wonder that help to reinforce that all-important sense of magic.

This is a challenging but ultimately rewarding piece of theatre, based around – in Douglas Maxwell’s own words – ‘a fairy tale wish for another chance to make everything right.’ The audience’s enthusiastic response seems to confirm that this production has achieved its aims.

4.2 stars

Philip Caveney