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 Pina Bausch's Tanztheater Wuppertal, Playhouse, Edinburgh
The choreographer Pina Bausch made her name with darker works, taking a confessional look at frantic needs. Later in life, she lightened up. In Agua, her 2001 celebration of Brazil, Bausch luxuriates in images of palm trees, twinkling fairy lights, days and nights at the beach. Her characters still have issues, but they're having a much better time. Fri, 03 Sep 2010 00:00:01 +0100 Alonzo King Lines Ballet, Festival Theatre, Edinburgh
Alonzo King's Dust and Light starts with a soloist crouched in a pool of light. Still squatting, she rises on pointe, then stretches one leg out. The balance is difficult, but it's also cramped. King rarely lets his sleek dancers move at full stretch, keeping them knotted up in overcomplicated moves. Thu, 02 Sep 2010 00:00:01 +0100 Michael Clark Company, Tate Modern, London
Michael Clark's dancers go stalking through the huge Turbine Hall of Tate Modern. The stage is so big that they sprint into place, stopping dead in cool, assured poses. Clark has been in residence for seven weeks, rehearsing in public on a black-and-white patterned dance space. Wed, 01 Sep 2010 00:00:01 +0100 Penelope, Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh
Enda Walsh has long been one of the best and most challenging of all Irish playwrights; his new piece, Penelope breaks out of his Cork confines and deposits us in a drained swimming pool on the sweltering hot day of Odysseus's return. Wed, 01 Sep 2010 00:00:01 +0100 The Black Panthers: The soul survivors
The revolution may have fizzled out before it could be televised, but that hardly deters its admirers from reliving its finest moments. Almost half a century after the Black Panthers began toting guns on the streets of Oakland, and Tom Wolfe lampooned their celebrity supporters in an essay that added a new term to the lexicon ? "radical chic" ? the Marxist movement and the art and music it inspired are to be celebrated in a world premiere at the Barbican, in the very belly of the capitalist City of London. Tue, 31 Aug 2010 16:12:56 +0100 Claire Skinner: From washing up to the West End
The other day Claire Skinner was watching a documentary about a schoolgirl
from the Isle of Man when she felt a flash of recognition.
Mon, 30 Aug 2010 00:00:51 +0100 Vieux Carr้, Royal Lyceum, Edinburgh
The Gospel at Colonus, Playhouse, Edinburgh
Caledonia, King's Theatre, Edinburgh
It ain't exactly pretty. Imported by the Edinburgh International Festival, Tennessee Williams's Vieux Carr้ looks, knowingly, like a pile of junk. Not entirely old junk. Sun, 29 Aug 2010 00:00:01 +0100 Wikipedia springs 'Mousetrap' ending
First WikiLeaks stood accused of unnecessarily revealing closely guarded secrets. Now it's Wikipedia's turn. The online encyclopaedia is refusing to yield to criticism from Agatha Christie's family for revealing the ending of The Mousetrap, the world's longest-running play. Sun, 29 Aug 2010 00:00:01 +0100 The Moira Monologues, National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh
Alan Bissett is one of the leading lights of a vibrant, young Scottish
literary scene with three novels ? Boyracers, The Incredible Adam Spark and
Death of a Ladies? Man under his belt. He?s also, it turns out, a pretty
fine performer.
Sat, 28 Aug 2010 12:31:41 +0100 Honest, Assembly Rooms
Is honesty always the best policy? For Dave, the angry young man protagonist
of DC Moore?s searing - and searingly funny - playlet, it?s the only policy.
Fri, 27 Aug 2010 18:38:10 +0100 Gutted: A Revenger?s Musical, Assembly Rooms
There?s much fun to be had at Gutted playing spot the stand-up behind the
costumes, wigs and grease-paint. There?s Doc Brown as the warm-hearted handy
man, Sara Pascoe as the slow-witted maid and Colin Hoult as, well, pretty
much everyone else, from the creepy groom to the obese uncle and the
statuesque mother-in-law.
Fri, 27 Aug 2010 11:53:37 +0100 A wave of celebration for Morris dancing on the Southbank
Next weekend, the village green comes to London's brutalist Southbank with a three-day celebration of Morris dancing. At least, the village green would be the preconception most people hold of the widely denigrated folk custom, and one that 5,000 Morris dancers aims to dismiss. Fri, 27 Aug 2010 00:00:01 +0100 My Hamlet, Assembly Rooms, Edinburgh
"Who's there?" cries Hamlet on the battlements of Elsinore, kick-starting the greatest revenge tragedy in the language. "Who's there?" cries Linda Marlowe as an old cleaning lady, sweeping up back stage. Fri, 27 Aug 2010 00:00:01 +0100 The royal rogue that Spacey was 'born to play'
He is Shakespeare's gloriously Machiavellian monarch-in-waiting, who machinates and murders his way to the throne during the 15th-century Wars of the Roses. Fri, 27 Aug 2010 00:00:01 +0100 While You Lie/The Girl in the Yellow Dress, Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh (2/5, 3/5)
Punishing times at the Traverse this August ? unless, that is, you happen to enjoy being locked in a basement in close proximity to warring couples, sadomasochistic power play and masturbating males. While You Lie is the theatre's much-trumpeted "flagship production" of the season. Bearing the burden of this hype is Sam Holcroft, a 27-year-old playwright who came to prominence with her debut, Cockroach, in 2008. Thu, 26 Aug 2010 00:00:01 +0100 Grupo Corpo, Festival Theatre
Brazilian dance troupe Grupo Corpo are a bouncy company, doing lots of flying leaps and cheerful samba shimmies. The dancers are lithe and polished, dancing with acrobatic ease. They're likeable, but their material is limited. Music and dance get into a groove, and stick there. Thu, 26 Aug 2010 00:00:01 +0100 Lidless, Underbelly
An uncomfortable watch in more ways than one, for Lidless the audience is lined up on tiny camping stools around the walls of a brightly-lit white box. Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig's punchy play won the Yale Drama Series Award in 2009 and plaudits from David Hare and it's easy to see why. The meeting between a Guantanamo Bay interrogator, Alice, who can't remember what she did there and one of her inmates, Bashir, who can't forget it, is fraught with tension and indignation. Wed, 25 Aug 2010 00:00:01 +0100  Whenever I Get Blown Up I Think of You/ I'm Hans Christian Andersen/ Running on Air, The Zoo/ Pleasance Courtyard ( /
Three young, female storytellers, all with their own tales to tell ? and very different ways of telling them. Molly Naylor, a rising light of the London poetry scene, is a survivor of the 7/7 terrorist attacks. Whenever I Get Blown Up I Think of You is her story of the bombing and how she put her life back together afterwards ? part spoken-word, part coming-of-age tale, part therapy session. A pretty blonde in a gingham shirt and trainers, she looks innocent, but a hardened expression and propulsive, urgent flow speak of bitter experience. The terror of Aldgate tube is deftly dealt with ? she contrasts her youthfully idealistic to-do list with that of the bomber, "Pack a bag/ Say goodbye/ Pray for soul... Tick, tick, tick" ? but it's only part of the story. This is Naylor's journey from a Cornish village to the bright lights of the big city and back again, from hope to fear and back to hope. The writing is urgent, edgy, the poetry of young urban Britain. Well worth a look.
Tue, 24 Aug 2010 00:00:01 +0100 Caledonia, King's Theatre
Alistair Beaton's new play has a thumping big subject in the Darien scheme, the 1698 plan to establish a Scottish trading colony on the isthmus of Panama. Huge amounts of money were raised before the colony collapsed through disease, bad management and corruption. There were long-term effects on Scottish finances and politics ? the union with England followed shortly afterwards ? and obvious parallels with the recent banking crisis. Tue, 24 Aug 2010 00:00:01 +0100 Sonya?s Story, Riverside Studios, London
Chances for creative teams to test-drive operas-in-the-making are few and far between. A big cheer, then, for T๊te เ T๊te, the festival that brings us tomorrow's operas today as works-in-progress amid the welcoming buzz of the Riverside Studios. Tue, 24 Aug 2010 00:00:01 +0100 | |
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