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Michael Cox reviews Helen Lawrence, Ubu and the Truth Commission and FRONT.
The Fringe might take a lot of the limelight during the August festival season in Edinburgh, with its literal wall-to-wall shows, but the actual Edinburgh International Festival always comes across as a classy oasis of culture, bringing international art that one wouldn’t usually have access to. The fact that EIF allows for large-scale productions to come from so far away is one of the great pleasures of attending EIF productions—even if the end result isn’t up to scratch.
Take Helen Lawrence (**), a production that might be useful mostly as a talking point about the difference between film and theatre. The set-up is intriguing at the very least: take a noir crime thriller and perform it on stage but also record it via cameras dotted throughout the space. So, in essence, the audience are watching the story twice: a) a theatre production where the actors are dressed in 1940s fashion but stand on a set surrounded by blue walls and b) a film where the actors are projected into computer-created sets.
Great in concept—not so much in execution. What happens is that both aspects have a bad habit of cancelling the other out. Most of the cast fair well in one style but don’t come off as convincing in the other—and it’s almost always mixed within a scene. Only two performers, Haley McGee as street-smart orphan Julie and Mayko Nguyen as prostitute with a heart of gold Rose, are equally compelling on stage and film. It doesn’t help that, for the vast majority of the 95-minute running time, watching both simultaneously seems overkill. Only one scene, the murder of one key character by another, is served well in both formats.
It’s a shame that it doesn’t come together better because there is admirable skill on hand. Alas, Helen Lawrence feels like nothing more than a gimmick attempting to hide a cliché-ridden script.
Also on a grand theatrical scale, but a bit more successful, is Ubu and the Truth Commission (***), a political comedic drama. Rather than being an adaptation of Alfred Jarry’s Ubu Roi, this takes the spirit of that political satire and puts it in a post apartheid state. The Ubus are far from ideal: Ma Ubu is translating at truth commissions for those who’d been oppressed and tortured by the previous regime, little knowing that her husband, Pa Ubu, was a major part of it.
It is absurd theatre that is peppered with outrageous staging—realism is not to be found here. Pa Ubu goes about most of the play hiding evidence of his crimes, even if he feels he’s done nothing wrong. Much of these crimes are shown in black and white projections, made up of animations and quotes. However, it’s the puppets that seem to be getting most of the press—and they are impressive: a three-headed dog that embodies much of the political crimes, an alligator handbag (literally!) used to eat evidence and, most striking of all, a beautiful wooden vulture who occasionally comes to life, staring at the events unfolding in judgment.
While it isn’t overly satisfying, it is still very well done. Perhaps the message is lost in the theatrics, or perhaps the theatre makers want ‘message’ to take a backseat. Either way, Ubu is an oddity that’s more admirable than enjoyable.
Something that is also more admirable than enjoyable, but in a far more successful context, is FRONT (****), a harrowing look at trench warfare in WWI. The company step out dressed in white shirts and black clothing and form a line. They speak out to the audience rather than to each other, speaking a collection of languages, holding microphones and occasionally using musical instruments.
With only lighting and projections, much of the drama could be played on radio with little difference. And yet the production creates such an intense feeling of foreboding for these characters that it’s easy to become enthralled by what happens. Tedium is mixed with confusion for these soldiers, and when the attacks come they are vicious and unforgiving.
It’s almost unbearable to take at times, and the lack of much theatrical action might put a lot off, but FRONT is still an excellent production that trades bombast for humanity, and rather than finishing on a crescendo it concludes in utter silence—an ending that’s as brave as it is heartbreaking.
All productions have completed their runs.
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