'A brave subject to take on...if in incredibly bad taste,' Lorna Irvine reviews the latest lunchtime theatre co-production between the Traverse and Oran Mor.
The winner of the Channel 4/Oran Mor Comedy Drama Award, Steven Dick has a good pedigree in writing for Scottish comedy having previously created material for Chewing The Fat, Kevin Bridges and... ahem...Frankie Boyle, so it's interesting to note that this is his first play.
And what a play! It is certainly going to prove divisive, dealing as it does with the genius/psychopath artist paradigm. How you respond will very much depend on how sensitive you are to gags about Afghanistan, whores, drugs, mental health problems and other such contentious matters.
For at the heart is Peter Harris, nihilistic artist, played in stereo surround sound by Stewart Porter. Subtle it ain't. Harris has been commissioned by the government to paint an image of war. What his long-suffering art dealer Will Chapman is not prepared for is that Peter, in the ultimate gesture of artistic and political expression, has a blank canvas, titled Two Minute Silence, onto which he will splat...himself. He has strapped explosives to his vest. ''It'll be just like Jackson Pollock'', he insists. Can Will talk the loose cannon into not going off before prim government representative Claire Wood appears?
Some incredibly astute observations on war, class, how genius is defined and then diluted in being accepted by the mainstream are unfortunately lost in the bluster of Porter's performance. Selina Boyack as Claire, and an exasperated Will, played by an outstanding Russell Layton, temper the histrionics. Claire gets one of the best lines in, ''You're not modern art, are you- eyes, nose and ears all over the place?!''
A brave subject to take on nonetheless, if in incredibly bad taste, and a new talent fully-formed- definitely one to look out for.
RSS