RUNNING GIRL. To 6 July.
Edinburgh
RUNNING GIRL
by Gary Young
Boilerhouse Theatre at Corn Exchange 4-6 July 2002
8pm
Runs approx 1hr 35min No interval
TICKETS 0131 668 2019
Review Timothy Ramsden 15 June at Tramway, Glasgow
Boldly innovative mixed-media production where the elements reinforce each other.Even with a chunk cut out in Glasgow, owing to actor injury, this Boilerhouse production remains impressively theatrical. Performed in each of two huge old Scottish venues, it exploits their distance and height to give a sense of anonymous, fragmented city life. And these fragments explode against Kate Dickie's ever-mobile title character on her nocturnal pacing through a space that's simultaneously a huge emptiness and, with its promenading audience, crowded with strangers.
A sense of hustle's increased as we're marshalled and corralled by two huge screens which, like Dickie's medical-testing treadmill, are manoeuvred round the space, apparently at random, actually to line up for her encounters. These are with people on the edge. Literally, with an apparent suicide (the piece plays neatly with the notion that real suicides don't advertise their intentions), figuratively with people like an insistent street evangelist and a car-crash victim, whose mobile 'phone batteries seem to expire at the crucial, crushing moment.
Though some of the urban – yet not urbane – realism in the dialogue is predictable, it builds as an element in the theatrical symphony, blending with Graham Cunnington's live music and Angeline Ferguson's kaleidoscopic videoscapes - outlining a nocturnal Edinburgh anonymised by the overall setting - to create a polyphonic structure, through which Dickie's unknown character pounds like an insistent theme.
It's an unusual piece, where the central character's the only one not known by name. Then, as her feet slow to a walk, hints of what it is this Girl is running from assemble into a final, modelled film sequence with a plot-resolving sequence reflecting – as it were – the long shadow of The Sixth Sense.
You can salute Kate Dickie's performance, creating a substantial individual amongst the video anonymity. You have to admire her sheer energy and stamina. Others in the cast give good performances. But it's the overall scope and bravura of this Boilerhouse project which make Running Girl a standout feature of the year's theatre.
Marsha: Christina Cochran
Bruno: Robin Sneller
Running Girl: Kate Dickie
Jumper: Robert Vesty
Siren 1: Cait Davis
Siren 2: Lee Hart
Preacher: Joy McBrinn
Paramedics: Kevin McIsaac, Donna McCulloch
Danny: Anthony Donaldson
Director: Paul Pinson
Designer: Caroline Grebbell
Lighting: Paul Sorley
AV Technical Producer: Ian Ferguson
AV Production Co-ordinator: Jessica Richards
3D Animation: Jason Hertzmark
AV Production assistant: Helen Clarkson
Video/Film Artist: Angeline Ferguson
Composer: Graham Cunnington
2002-06-27 23:02:13