FLOP. To 30 August.

Edinburgh

FLOP
created by the cast

Pig Iron THeatre Company at THe Pleasance Courtyard (Pleasance Two)
Wed-Mon 4.15pm
Runs 1hr 5min No interval

TICKETS: 0131 556 6550
Review: Timothy Ramsden 23 August

Inventive physical comedy maintains a fine momentum for the first-half.Make no mistake; Pig Iron are good. Accomplished red-nose clowns, they let the face tell a lot. There's the gangly, awkward one, the one who's gorgeously-decked out and knows she looks good (treating all life as a photo-opportunity). And the active one who gets on with life, having made a late, noisy entry.

Late entries seem a Pig Iron speciality; every latecomer receives a high-speed resume of the action to date. But in one sense, this is too early a point to make a definitive statement on this Philadelphia-based company as they approach their 10th birthday.

The first half-hour is quite hilarious, playing with time, rewinding the clock to avert disaster. But, as with so many devised pieces, the story's over, the routines really done, before there's enough to provide an audience's money worth. So the show moves into inconsequential scenes of travel ( too often the useful standby when the immediate situation's worked through).

The performing skill remains as high, but the material would be better presented as separate sketches, rather than dragging along any expectation of narrative continuity.

Next year, the company will be combining with Adriano Shaplin, director of The Riot Group (not in Edinburgh this year, but triumphant in 2003). He could bring a different discipline, of movement rooted in text. The production will also have roots in a classic Polish script.

It was Durrenmatt's The Visit which, some years ago, took Theatre de Complicite on to a new level of work as they abandoned pure devising for scripted drama. So 2005 could see Pig Iron reaching white heat. Meanwhile, not a flop; merely hot acting in increasingly lukewarm material.

Cast: Nichole Canuso, Emmanuelle Delpech-Ramey, Lee Etzold

Director: Dan Rothenberg
Designer: Matt Saunders
Lighting: Mark O' Maley
Sound: James Sugg
Costume: Molly Hansich

2004-08-24 11:28:04