SAN DIEGO. To 17 August.

Edinburgh International Festival

SAN DIEGO
by David Greig

Tron Theatre Company (Glasgow) at Royal Lyceum Theatre To 17 August 2003

To be revived, with cast changes, at Glasgow Tron in October 2003

Runs 2hr 50min One interval

TICKETS:0131 473 2000
www.eif.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 16 August

35 minutes longer than originally announced, yet not a moment's indulgence nor a moment that should be cut. A remarkable achievement.With its darkly spoken dialogue mutters and low, urgent music this opens as a real Lepage-turner. The sound's merely from an inflight movie and if touchdown reveals San Diego - America's Highest life-quality location - more as an assemblage of upended luggage, that's fitting. Here, it's far less locale than state of being.

Not only do many of America's Missing Children come here. Greig's characters are seeking, searching for or trying to communicate with someone. Major, done-to-a-turn and overdone themes, maybe but ones Greig handles with unusual flair. His script and production co-worked with Marisa Zanotti, give an amply-justified complexity that fits the themes like a glove. Only not so cosy.

Identity muddies. 'David Greig' (the in-play character, embodied with scrupulous neutrality and wonder by Billy Boyd) becomes only one of many Davids - it's caught as the name of the initially-anonymous Pilot who cannot describe his overnight San Diego apartment's locale, then searching for his lost Hooker (first of several Amys) finds the bleeding 'Greig' in the streets following an attack by Daniel, who seems to have drawn him there.

Daniel, meanwhile, is being cared for by two adoptive men, his alter-Dad and Mum, while searching against all probability but with eventual success for his lost mother.

Meanwhile, the Pilot's daughter's in a London clinic, depressed and self-harming, fails to make contact with father by mobile.

But when contacts are made they can bring trouble. Daniel's truculent when his alter-parents try to give him work, Laura's fellow-patient finds peace with,and brings love, to her, but only through near-cannibal variatrions on her self-harming.

Another couple's search for their child turns one of them, Marie, to religion. There are elements of religious ceremonial throughout, though a Mother Superior tells Marie, now a nun, God doesn't exist.

These elements extend to theatre ritual.The dying David's removal from the street by paramedics is brilliantly played as an in-production emergency, sound-scoring ceasing, lighting moving to working neutrality and the acting ensemble relaxing as the paras mutter naturalistically at their work.

For the remaining action, 'David Greig' hovers celestially over proceedings on a suitcase-screen, at times still, at others his head moving in various degrees of agitation above the human anguish and strivings.

Familiar style-devices from Greig's previous work, including that with Scottish company Suspect Culture are out in force: 'cool' playing, significant yet surprising details that get repeated or varied as they build significance, super detail, underscoring sound-score. Rarely - if at all - have they been used to such devasting impact.

A superb cast play the apparent detachment and micro-intensity to perfection. The International Festival's palmed some awkward and ungainly productions off on us over the years. Here, by contrast, is one of the richest, most satisfyingly complex and, ultimately, emotionally devastating theatre pieces I've seen anywhere, ever. It brings Greig, and this sometimes Suspect style to a new maturity, matching the best of Canadian wunderkind Robert Lepage and making a magnificent centre-piece to the Drama programme.

The production returns to Glasgow's Tron in October, though without Boyd and Tony Guilfoyle's Pilot, a figure splendidly embodying progress from seeking casual sex to complex emotions and a stand for his profession's dignity against risible management 'modernisations'. It's a pity to lose them, but the whole experience should not be missed by anyone keen for the rewards of a complexity that's far from arid.

David Greig: Billy Boyd
Pious/David in Consultancy: Callum Cuthbertson
Laura: Abigail Davies
David the Patient: Huss Garbiya
Counsellor/Woman on Phone/Mother Superior/Patienbce: Tamzin Griffin
The Pilot: Tony Guilfoyle
Innocent/The Bedouin Tribesman/David in Consultancy: Paul Thomas Hickey
Marie/San Diego Cop/: Vicki Liddelle
Daniel: Milton Lopes
Andrew/San Diego Cop/David in Consultancy: Nicholas Pinnock
Stewardess/Amy (Hooker)/Sarah: Gabriel Quigley

Directors: Marisa Zanotti/David Greig
Designer: Simon Vincenzi
Lighting: Chahine Yavroyan
Sound: Graeme Miller

2003-08-17 11:38:24