PIT. To 26 August.
Edinburgh 2007 Fringe.
PIT.
by Megan Baker.
Traverse Theatre, Cambridge St To 26 August 2007
Tue-Sun not 13 or 20 Various times
Runs 1hr No interval
TICKETS.0131 228 1404.
www.thearches.co.uk
Review: Thelma Good 3 August 2007.
Own rhythmic chorus on her life.
The poor live in another world, one hard to imagine. Indeed many others, cushioned by money, opportunity and education, live as if they didn’t exist, weren’t fellow human beings.
An Arches New Work commission, Megan Baker’s play has the central character played by three female young actors. By fragmenting her words they become her own rhythmic chorus on her life. It’s mainly a successful technique - just a few times Baker overdoes the repetitions.
First seen in The Arches Glasgow it is not set amongst the Scottish poor but in the Southern US. Myrtle Jackson tells us how she tries to hold together some kind of family, but poverty grinds any comfort mighty thin. As she looks back she cooks a special meal for her son Brandon.
The three actresses prepare the ingredients for the meal on three identical cooking stands at the back of the stage. Myrtle tells us health and safety means she has to use a blunt knife, confirming the idiocy of officialdom, where the real solution, be it a sharp knife or really support for families, is seen as unsafe, even dangerous.
When they move centre stage to the rough table with the repaired baby bath below it, they create the other characters in the story. Young Brandon’s birthday goes pear shaped due to Grandfather’s visit to a local store. Later Myrtle and the kids are living with Larsen and a third child is born, sickly Baby Whistler. She’s always leaking and wheezing but the story has no silver lining, no fairy godmother.
By the time Brandon returns to the family with his shaking girlfriend Worm Georgie, you know it’s going to turn out bad. To have really smelt the cooking meatballs sizzling in the pan would provide too much comforting sustenance.
Pit reminds us how all over the world unempowered women try to do too much loving surrounded by too much poverty because Authorities lack the courage to really make things different.
Myrtle and other characters: Yvonne Caddell, Ray Farr and Patricia Kavanagh
Director/Sound: Neil Doherty
Lighting: Rob Watson
2007-08-07 10:18:29