THE FESTIVAL

Sara Villiers found that the altitudes of the high points more than

made up for the few depressions

WHIMSICALLY plotting my critical journey through the Festival theatre

programme as a graph of highs and lows I have created a mountain range

which certainly towers over my Fringe experience but which has a few

troughs none the less, though thankfully no sloughs of despond.

If, against my fevered anticipations, it occasionally felt like a slog

-- the first production, Lanark, proved disheartening and the Berliner

Ensemble's production of The Merchant of Venice blazed only briefly --

then the altitudes of the high points more than compensated for the

depressions of the lows. The finely channelled emotional energy of Don

Carlos sucked my breath away, while Dans la Solitude des Champs de Coton

made me dizzy with excitement.

Ultimately, the wondrous moments stay with you while, thankfully, the

memories of the disappointments quickly fade and on reflection it was a

commendable programme of diverse and popular appeal.

Less adventurous than in previous years, it was certainly more

audience-friendly, with its range of English-speaking productions and

easily accessible foreign humour, from the madcap antics of Deschamps et

Deschamps' C'est Magnifique to Berlin's Schaubuhne Am Lehniner Platz's

translations of the elegant French social comedies of Sacha Guitry, The

Illusionist and Let's Dream.

It boasted world-class directors familiar to Festival audiences, Peter

Zadek and Luc Bondy, while introducing Patrice Chereau, still described

as Europe's enfant terrible despite his grizzled appearance, to

Edinburgh. Now we're clamouring for his return. Dans La Solitude . . .

was potentially the riskiest Festival venture -- playwright

Bernard-Marie Koltes, who died of Aids in 1989 aged 41, might be

acclaimed in France but his work is virtually unknown here and the play

itself had only ever been staged once before -- but it proved a stunning

success despite the uninformed and preposterous cavils of some English

critics. They spent the intensely visual experience of the highly

physical performance scanning an English translation of the script which

had been sent out weeks in advance.

McMaster's inclusion of this Odeeo-Theatre de L'Europe production was

perhaps his finest Festival theatre achievement, focusing as it did an

attention on Koltes which will hopefully result in future presentations

of his work in this country.

And, despite my serious misgivings over Lanark, which is now embarking

on an extensive tour of Scotland, the inclusion of TAG was also

commendable, McMaster offering support of a Scottish company which has

produced sterling work for years and which packed audiences in during

its previous Festival foray in 1993, with A Scots Quair. I just wish

they had chosen something more original than yet another adaptation to

showcase their skills.

Much of the programme was tried and tested. Dublin's Abbey Theatre had

had a huge hit last year on home turf with director Patrick Mason's

revival of Frank McGuinness's Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Toward

the Somme. McMaster had set himself up for some flak in inviting a

company who had visited the Festival only last year (with Synge's The

Well of the Saints) but the force of this movingly acted and simply but

strikingly designed production conquered all.

In a fine example of ensemble acting by nine men, Conor McDermottroe

was particularly memorable as Craig facing up to the carnage of the

Somme with compassion and courage. Just as they bravely enter battle so

the company were unruffled by the disruption of not one but two fire

alarms which interrupted a performance, triggered by the stultifying

heat wave and decanting the audience on to the street twice. The actors'

unflappability, plunging back into the deeply-felt action, was

recognised and rewarded with a Herald Little Devil award for so

admirably overcoming adversity.

Director Peter Zadek's production of The Merchant of Venice was also a

previously acclaimed success, in its debut incarnation in Venice in

1988. Its setting of the merchants' wheelings and dealings on the Rialto

in a contemporaneous, yuppified money-making arena is one which has been

much emulated since and the production, which posits Shylock as a

merchant no more mercenary than any other, had many intriguing elements

and boasted a powerful opening act, but its central dynamics fizzed out

throughout the evening.

Awaited with near-bated breath, as it was the same team who had

brought last year's sensational Antony and Cleopatra, it proved to be

insubstantial. A great disappointment, to me at least, Zadek's

interpretation was certainly applauded elsewhere. However, I couldn't

get over the irritation of exceptionally weak performances by the women,

in particular Eva Mattes. Practically revered in Germany, she came

across as a stoney-faced, wooden Portia, although the inadequacies of

her performance were certainly compensated for by the brilliant Gert

Voss as Shylock.

Voss triggered the biggest guessing game of the Festival when,

post-Merchant, he was stricken with a serious throat infection which put

him in hospital. Would he or wouldn't he make his next scheduled

appearance in the first of the Guitry double-bill, directed by Luc

Bondy, The Illusionist? At a Festival press conference McMaster

announced, with regret, that the first performance was cancelled. How we

groaned with disappointment. How we cheered when less than an hour later

McMaster dramatically informed us that the show would go on after all.

Voss's fortitude was admirable, although our excitment was somewhat

misplaced as The Illusionist and Let's Dream, while both perfectly

produced and wittily acted, were very slight pieces, Guitry's social

observation lacking the bite and sassiness of Coward. Charming but

incapable of creating any frisson.

There were thrills in abundance during the earlier production of Don

Carlos, a powerhouse production which united the talents of the

Citizens' triumvirate, with Robert David MacDonald translating the

Schiller play, Philip Prowse directing and designing, and Giles Havergal

playing King Philip II of Spain with majestic gravitas.

It was a remarkable, intensely theatrical achievement which, like the

exhilarating Dans la Solitude des Champs des Coton, was awarded a Herald

Angel. This was excellence indeed.