INTO THE DARK. To 21 October.
Tour
INTO THE DARK
by Donald McCleary
Visible Fictions Tour to 21 October 2004
Runs 2hr 15min One interval
Review: Timothy Ramsden 25 September at King's Theatre Edinburgh
Young people's theatre needs better than this.
Last year the Scottish Touring Theatre Consortium (comprising the major venues on this tour) scored a hit with a young people's play Arthur the Story of a King, in which Wee Stories evoked the Camelot myth with three men, a grand piano and multiple packs of breakfast cereal. Deservedly, the tour was remounted in the spring.
This year, the Consortium's gone, reasonably enough, to Visible Fictions, which also has a strong track record in schools and arts venues with young people's work. But, in theatre you can never assure a winner with ingredients from past successes. It's hard to see this earning a spring tour. In fact, I wish it could be buried straight away.
As Theatre in Education, it might have had a chance. Running 50 minutes, the stylised woodland setting passing as a theatrical metaphor in a familiar school hall, and with issues raised then handled in workshop or discussion.
But at full-length in a theatre where half-hearted stylistic gestures (choreographed swinging and stamping with planks) are interspersed with realism of acting and dialogue, the piece is a mess. There are notices of strong language' posted in the theatre walls and a lot of use it is finding out after people have bought their tickets and turned up for a family or school night out (this is not generally a daytime show).
And how boringly repetitive the swearing, and action overall, is. The first act could be cut to 5 minutes without omitting anything by way of character or plot development. There's a search for an old woman who is thought to be a witch. Given her powers of reviving after a savage, stylised slaughter it seems she is.
This may make a good adventure story. In theatre, where character's to the forefront, it's a dangerous metaphor. So it is all right to smash up anyone strange they probably are guilty of something. When the instruments of revenge are as yobbish as some of this crew, that's a dubious line. There again, after so much tramping about on Evelyn Barbour's location-anonymous set, is anyone out there left caring?
Colin: Paul Charlton
Stevie: Simon Donaldson
Ang: Claire Knight
Ben: Grant O' Rourke
Jim: Antony Strachan
Mrs Liddle: Vari Sylvester
Director: Douglas Irvine
Designer: Evelyn Barbour
Lighting: Kai Fischer
Composer: Jim Sutherland
Choreographer: Michael Popper
2004-09-26 17:00:31