STILL LIFE. To 21 February.
Edinburgh
STILL LIFE
by John Byrne
Traverse Theatre ( Traverse 1) In rep to 25 January then tour to 21 February 2004
Tue-Sun 8pm except 17,24 January at 8.30pm as part of full-trilogy days.
Runs 2hr 15min One interval
TICKETS: 0131 228 1404
Review: Timothy Ramsden 11 January
More an appendage than a final instalment, but still with exemplary one-liners.Two plays in a 1957 day: The Slab Boys set at work in a bottom-of-the-pile carpet factory dye-works, Cutting' A Rug at play with the staff dance. Finally, Still Life, a conversation piece which jumps forward to a Paisley cemetery in 1967 and 1972.
The frustrations and optimism present even in angry Phil McCann, and his friend Spanky (the secret's out now his real name's George) as teenage put-upons was expressed from inside. Here, as Spanky goes pop and Phil's been to art school, they're seen from the outside - dramatic characters needing another episode rather than freshly-realised individuals.
Perceptive moments, as when the two argue over Phil's fee for designing Spanky's next LP cover (life's no longer a simple song of defiance against authority) come along. But much depends on references back, unlikely to engage anyone who hasn't seen the two earlier plays. Yet there's a risk for those who have that the patterns of humour cross-purposes and undercutting comments - will merely seem a dulled repetition of glories past.
Roxana Silbert's strangely unsubtle production doesn't help. Whole slabs of dialogue go colourlessly by in mutual harangues, the fact of argument washing over what's being argued about. Thank goodness for Molly Innes' skill and depth of feeling in the increasingly ungrateful part of Lucille, ex-office object of desire turned wife to Spanky then Phil an unlikely union eventually established more by audience goodwill than psychological justification.
Thanks too to John Kazek's portrayal of the now plookless Jack, grotesque in manner, if not appearance, as a clothes-seller with an eye for any outlet, and voice and gait explaining why, facial pustules apart, he was always the Slab Boys' target back in '57 awkward and heartily over-assertive, unable to see himself as others see him.
Neil Warmington's set, sloped, restrictive and uneasily mixing realism and over-assertive stylisation, is unhelpful too. Yet, met head-on after its predecessors, Still Life's limitations are easily forgiven, up to Phil's uncharacteristically warm last line - as if his troubled mother's death's allowed Lucille and maturity to replace the lads' cartwheeling optimism which ended the earlier plays.
Phil McCann: Paul Thomas Hickey
George Spanky Farrell: Iain Robertson
Lucille: Molly Innes
Jack Hogg: John Kazek
Workman: Michael Mackenzie
Director: Roxana Silbert
Designer: Neil Warmington
Lighting: Rick Fisher
Sound: Neil Alexander
Movement: Struan Leslie
Voice/Dialect Coach: Ros Steen
Assistant director: Lorne Campbell
2004-01-15 15:49:58