Brick Awards @ The Arches, 11 Mar
Two marvellous and contrasting works, imaginative direction and enthusiastic performances.
| 01 Apr 2008
The Arches' commitment to emerging theatre is clearly expressed through The Brick Awards: two outstanding performances from the Edinburgh Fringe transplanted to Glasgow. Both 1927 and Analogue demonstrate the best qualities of the fringe: lively performances, imaginative staging and accessible experimentation.
On paper, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea and Mile End are similar. They use projections in place of scenery. They have young, small casts and are balanced between traditional theatre and suggestive movement-based work. They search for new ways of engaging the audience.
In performance, they are very different: Between the Devil apes burlesque in a series of mannered, sinister and hilarious sketches, while Mile End is a serious look at the events leading to an apparently random murder. Mile End is obsessed with signs and wonders: birds fall from the sky, dreams and casual conversations take on predictive meanings. Between the Devil happily presents malicious twins and grim tales of absurd death to an elegant piano accompaniment.
Analogue's Mile End begins with Michael and Alex, the eventual killer and his victim, going about their lives. When Kate, Alex's wife, begins to talk, she talks of loss and disorientation; the action then cuts to the parallel stories that collide at the fatal train station. Sam Taylor brings a convincing anxiety to Michael's gradual break-down, and the black-clothed extras who provide special effects, scene changes and additional characters radiate menace.
But the interchanges between Alex (Liam Jarvis) and Kate (Hannah Barker) pack the strongest punch. Their bickering - at first the casual attrition of the long-term relationship - slowly becomes more intense, more frustrated. The failure to communicate leads Alex to his death, as much as Michael's mania or the fate dictated by dreams. This lends the play a tragic, fragile beauty that transcends the simple plot of 'insane man kills commuter'.
1927 act serious to heighten the comedy. Miss Lillian Henley's compositions delight with her mellifluous voice and dramatic motion-picture piano; Master Paul Barritt excites the sensibilities with his sepia-tinted animations of devilment and disaster; while the twin performers, Miss Suzanne Andrade and Miss Esme Appleton, specialise in a sensual horror that owes much to the works of Mr Edward Gorey. Their stories may often end in sadness, but are also curiously edifying: since they warn of the dangers facing young women who stray from the path of righteousness, or for those obsessed with the wonders of deep-fat frying.
At the heart of this enthusiastic romp lies a deception: here are very calculating, very sophisticated artists questioning the nature of the stage, and bringing life to a cabaret tradition that is on the verge of collapse beneath amateur strip-tease antics and self-conscious bad comedy. 1927 inhabit the year of their name, straddling music hall, silent movies and temperance-hall lectures - all served with a cheerful slice of respectful irony.
Two marvellous and contrasting works, imaginative direction and enthusiastic performances, tragedy and comedy, intensity and absurdity: the Brick Awards themselves are the real winners.
On paper, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea and Mile End are similar. They use projections in place of scenery. They have young, small casts and are balanced between traditional theatre and suggestive movement-based work. They search for new ways of engaging the audience.
In performance, they are very different: Between the Devil apes burlesque in a series of mannered, sinister and hilarious sketches, while Mile End is a serious look at the events leading to an apparently random murder. Mile End is obsessed with signs and wonders: birds fall from the sky, dreams and casual conversations take on predictive meanings. Between the Devil happily presents malicious twins and grim tales of absurd death to an elegant piano accompaniment.
Analogue's Mile End begins with Michael and Alex, the eventual killer and his victim, going about their lives. When Kate, Alex's wife, begins to talk, she talks of loss and disorientation; the action then cuts to the parallel stories that collide at the fatal train station. Sam Taylor brings a convincing anxiety to Michael's gradual break-down, and the black-clothed extras who provide special effects, scene changes and additional characters radiate menace.
But the interchanges between Alex (Liam Jarvis) and Kate (Hannah Barker) pack the strongest punch. Their bickering - at first the casual attrition of the long-term relationship - slowly becomes more intense, more frustrated. The failure to communicate leads Alex to his death, as much as Michael's mania or the fate dictated by dreams. This lends the play a tragic, fragile beauty that transcends the simple plot of 'insane man kills commuter'.
1927 act serious to heighten the comedy. Miss Lillian Henley's compositions delight with her mellifluous voice and dramatic motion-picture piano; Master Paul Barritt excites the sensibilities with his sepia-tinted animations of devilment and disaster; while the twin performers, Miss Suzanne Andrade and Miss Esme Appleton, specialise in a sensual horror that owes much to the works of Mr Edward Gorey. Their stories may often end in sadness, but are also curiously edifying: since they warn of the dangers facing young women who stray from the path of righteousness, or for those obsessed with the wonders of deep-fat frying.
At the heart of this enthusiastic romp lies a deception: here are very calculating, very sophisticated artists questioning the nature of the stage, and bringing life to a cabaret tradition that is on the verge of collapse beneath amateur strip-tease antics and self-conscious bad comedy. 1927 inhabit the year of their name, straddling music hall, silent movies and temperance-hall lectures - all served with a cheerful slice of respectful irony.
Two marvellous and contrasting works, imaginative direction and enthusiastic performances, tragedy and comedy, intensity and absurdity: the Brick Awards themselves are the real winners.
www.analogueproductions.co.uk
http://www.19-27.co.uk/