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.
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