KILLING TIME. To 28 August.

Edinburgh

KILLING TIME
by Richard Stockwell

C+3 Adam House Chambers Street To 28 August 2006
8.15pm
Runs 1hr 10min No interval
TICKETS: 0870 701 5105
www.Cthefestival.com
Review: Timothy Ramsden 14 August

Plot thickens but production stays thin.
Richard Stockwell has written an efficient little thriller. Throughout, it holds credibility as a man and woman meet, apparently accidentally. The thrill element lies first in the uncovering of motives behind a meeting that turns out to have been engineered, and then in the possible outcomes.

Stockwell covers all aspects of the situation in terms of motive and action. As this genre can show, what a person first seems to be and what they’re really like, or after, may be widely different.

Having 2 experienced actors, known from TV, may be a Fringe dramatist’s dream. But the performances in Jacqui Garbett’s undercooked production (for Hint of Lime Productions) are too televisual. Claudia Christian especially, throws lines away as if there’ll always be a microphone to pick them up (something George Calil avoids till late in the action). This certainly isn’t acting for a 3-sided audience.

The setting’s minimal, which is fair enough on the Fringe. But, linked no doubt with the limited time-slot venues provide the pace is too uniformly quick. While all too many ‘thrillers’ are hampered by over-deliberate realism with objects on stage, there’s no room here for plot to breathe or revelations about character to resonate.

Jane: Claudia Christian
Rick: George Calil

Director: Jacqui Garbett
Lighting: Michael Bentley
Fight co-ordinator: Dean Williams

2006-08-20 12:00:46