THE CRIMSON CORSET. To 30 August.
Edinburgh
THE CRIMSON CORSET
Scarlet Angel Productions at C Central
Mon-Sun 8.15pm
Runs 1hr No interval
TICKETS: 0870 701 5105
Review: Timothy Ramsden 24 August
Neat play that is constricted by its ideas.This is one of many productions that raise the half-full/half-empty syndrome. Are they worth doing (for anyone other than the participants and friends, that is)? This tidy two-hander is decently written, pleasantly acted, and makes a number of fair points about sexuality and sexual oppression in the early 20th century.
Yet, while distinguished enough among the feverish marketing scrum of the Edinburgh Fringe, does it contain enough to make it stand up as a solo night out (as opposed to the eight-or-more-a-day programmes of some Fringegoers)? Supporters might point to its clear critique of male dominance over the polite female mind as well as body, and a parallel between the domestic situation and the gathering force for women's suffrage.
Severer critics could mention the over-neatness of ideas, that the characters don't exist outside this one element of life and that every short scene comes round to one increasingly obvious point. They might, say, too, that it's one-sided and that the lordly husband doesn't appear in his own voice (how seriously would we take a critique of women's attitudes in a play stocked only with male characters?).
A happy young woman on holiday is selected by an aristocrat for his wife. As scenes progress through the marriage it's clear he only desires her figure when it is bound excessively tight in a corset. Believing it is her duty to please him, the lady undergoes agonies, to the increasing annoyance of the female servant she's brought with her. Eventually, the husband's found in a corset himself. Less concerned with any platonic ideal than a fetishistic notion of a woman's body, he's also paid the servant to keep quiet about her support for the suffragette movement.
Both anonymous performances are capable; though the older, more savvy servant has a gestural manner which is probably deliberate (it includes comments audiencewards) but this is not firmly established within the acting convention. There's a sinister edge to the sexuality, and a pitiable susceptibility in the young girl's self-surrender. But the action becomes schematic and predictable. Like the corseted form, perhaps, action and characters need fleshing out.
2004-08-31 23:48:26