CUTTIN' A RUG. To 21 February.
Edinburgh/Tour
CUTTIN' A RUG
by John Byrne
Traverse Theatre In rep to 24 January then tour to 21 February 2004
Tue-Sun 8pm except trilogy Saturdays 10,17,24 January at 4pm
Runs 2hr 10min One interval
TICKETS: 0131 228 1404
www.traverse.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 20 December
It may not carry the name, but this central section contains the souls of the Slab Boys trilogy.It may be seeing them apart (I caught the original Traverse Slab Boys Trilogy - Rug is the central section and the Young Vic revival as full day events) but the world of the annual staff dance for the dye-mixing slab boys and their colleagues in 1957 Paisley is noticeably different from The Slab Boys, the first play, set during working hours.
That's because Phil McCann - rebel without a moment's hesitation, art student hopeful and generally taken as nearest to an autobiographical figure Byrne provides - is now one voice in the industrial mix, rather than the dominant, mood-setting one of the first play.
As with Bruno in Lucas Belvaux' film Trilogy, anyone coming to Rug with no knowledge of the first instalment might not guess what explosive material McCann is though he simmers on the sidelines in Paul Thomas Hickey's suitable driven performance.
If anyone, it's Iain Robertson's Spanky taking centre-stage, with his easier manner he gets the final cartwheel and closing philosophical one-liner Phil had in play one. Always ready to sum up a situation, he's in the right play, as Byrne introduces the device of spoken-outloud thoughts, brisk comic warnings on impending conversational disasters.
Not that centre-stage is much of a place to be, especially in the shorter, Stags-and-Hens first act, where a row of sinks divides the male and female lavatories in Paisley Town Hall, their grandeur setting-off the down-to-earth characters. Neil Warmington's spacious elegance emphasises the arbitrary structuring of the second act, on the Town Hall balcony. Characters walk in whenever Byrne has some new routine requiring them, and the lights keep fusing with more dramatic convenience than likelihood.
Such things would seem less prominent in a simpler staging, yet the lives Byrne humorously evokes in his brittle, fast-paced dialogue, comically styled but with real urban flavour, makes this dramatic slab central to the trilogy in more than one way: we've seen (most of) these characters in the constricted work environment: now see the boys and girls, older folk too (Una Maclean's triumphant tea-lady supreme), come out to play with their glad-rags and dreams.
Bernadette: Dawn Steele
Terry: John Kazek
Lucille: Molly Innes
Alan: Grant O' Rourke
Hector: Alan Tripney
Miss Walkinshaw: Anne-Marie Timoney
Phil: Paul Thomas Hickey
Spanky: Iain Robertson
Sadie: Una Maclean
Willy Currie: Michael Mackenzie
Director: Philip Howard
Designer: Neil Warmington
Lighting: Rick Fisher
Sound: Neil Alexander
Movement: Struan Leslie
Voice coach: Ros Steen
Assistant director: Lorne Campbell
2003-12-30 12:33:02