THE END OF EVERYTHING EVER till 27 August
Edinburgh 2007 Fringe.
THE END OF EVERYTHING EVER, seen as last play within The European Narrative Trilogy with My Long Journey Home and Past Half Remembered seen on same day.
Devised by the company.
Pleasance 2, Pleasance Courtyard, The Pleasance.
The End Of Everything Ever only to 27 August 2007, one performance of the trilogy on 20 August.
Wed - Mon at 16:00.
Runs 1hr 15mins. No interval.
TICKETS: 0131 556 6550 or Fringe Box office 0131 226 0000.
www.nie-theatre.com
Review: Thelma Good 20 August 2007.
Great energy, we’re kept on side as history sweeps along.
The performance of all the plays in the trilogy only happened once this Fringe, but the last play The End Of Everything Ever plays until the 27th. They’re all very well worth seeing, in a performance style that has the audience on side from the moment they are serenaded and plied with sips of alcohol or tea depending on the play, Fernet Branca for the first, tea from a samovar and vodka for the second, and Kummel for the third.
This company takes good care their audience have a great time as we see the sweep of history as it rips ordinary peoples’ lives apart, but does not strip them of their spirit. They use a considerable range of languages, including a mad made up one in Andras’ mental hospital, and a full of energy and pathos Middle European style of music, played by the cast on accordions, melodeons, tambourine, flute, fiddle, trombone and suitcase. The sets are simple, deploying a large white sheet, umbrellas and in later plays suitcases, alarm clocks and wardrobes. Laughter and tears are close as is life lived in dangerous times in these presentations of stories of real European people.
The first play concerns Andras, played with a fitting air of increasing bemusement by Robert Orr. Hungarian Andras is pressed into the German Army just after he proposes to a girl, He then finds himself a prisoner, moving increasingly east across Russia to Siberia, where he comes to be held as insane for 53 years. The all male cast argue about what to say, and their different nationalities mean they’re concerned about different details. It’s an approach that tells us history and sanity depend on where you are standing.
In the second we meet Aude Henrye’s frail centenarian Maria and go back to when she fell in love with Tomas Mechacek’s Noam. Though it was nearly Kjell Moberg’s Noam who we saw first before they sorted it out. There’s no reverence for the fusty old fourth wall in NIE’s work, they move in and out of characters and between them and us with ease, skill and delight.
A delight the audience share, a delight that strengthens the positive currents in these tales which contain much heartache and uncertainty. The meeting of the so eager family with Anna Healey’s better looking sister, and the White Russians and then, the Velcro epaulets changed, Red Guards are treats. One acute social observation, the other full of political undercurrents.
In the final play it’s Iva Moberg’s vulnerable Agata we meet, a young girl whose music making family are immensely likeable. There’s her voice and heart breaking brother Franz, Mechacek, of 14, her father, played with open faced zest by David Pagan, who dashes around nervously taking charge, her mother, Barbora Latalova who gives her character intense reigned in emotions. Each make you want to cry. Agata’s story brings us to Britain as she’s bundled off with Milôs, her stuffed toy, on trains across Europe and then England, losing her all-important label on the way.
To see one of these is a treat - to see three in a day, with an audience who commit themselves to joining the cast on a theatrical journey lasting seven hours with two intervals, is transforming. Each play amplifies its fellows showing the anguish of being caught in the vice of history and the way we little human beings can, and sometimes do, find ourselves released, changed, but still able to live and love.
MY LONG JOURNEY HOME.
Robert Orr, Tomas Mechacek, David Pagan and Kjell Moberg.
PAST HALF REMEMBERED.
Aude Henrye, Tomas Mechacek, Iva Moberg, Anna Healey, David Pagan and Kjell Moberg.
THE END OF EVERYTHING EVER
Robert Orr, Tomas Mechacek, Iva Moberg, Barbora Latalova, David Pagan and Kjell Moberg.
Director : Alex Byrne.
Designer : Katerina Houska.
Movement : Kasia Zaremba.
Musical Direction : David Pagan.
2007-08-22 08:24:57