Barflies Review: Charles Bukowski as Theatre

An Edinburgh bar might seem like a strange place to stage a play adapted from the stories of American writer and notorious alcoholic Charles Bukowski. Using Barony Bar as their venue, Grid Iron Theatre Company push the boundaries of site-specific theatre to new horizons in Barflies, a show that grapples with the euphoric highs and bitter lows of alcohol abuse.

Keith Fleming plays a writer and drunkard who, like Bukowski, is torn between a fear of selling his soul to a world he has rejected and a desire for his creative voice to be heard. Gail Watson plays the many women, or “barflies”, in Henry’s life that he loves and loathes in equal measure. It’s almost impossible to tear your eyes away from the pair’s intoxicating chemistry. The self-destructive yet vibrant outcasts of Bukowski’s world of late night bars and neon lights are given a Scottish voice (appropriate, given the country’s drinking tradition), with the cast’s native accents lending an unpolished believability to their deliveries.

The play is superbly physical and well choreographed. Fleming and Watson dance, play and stumble around the bar, smashing bottles and moving almost unsettlingly close to the audience. Woozy salon music and Jeff Buckley’s “Lilac Wine” is played on a piano by bartender Silent Dave who croons emotively as the play’s destitute characters dive from drunken bliss to despair and then back again.

Watching this exploration of the heart and soul through alcohol is a thrill, and the genius of Bukowski’s work is done enormous justice in this heart-wrenchingly honest and gritty show.