THE FEVER. To 1 March.

Glasgow

THE FEVER
by Wallace Shawn

Citizens' Theatre Stalls Studio To 1 March 203
Tue-Sat 7.30pm Mat 22 February 3pm
Runs 1hr 30min No interval

TICKETS 0141 429 0022
www.citz.co.uk
Revierw Timothy Ramsden 15 February

Violins and violence in an awkwardly-staged polemic.
Whoever he is, the affluent American who buttonholes our attention has a lot on his mind - and on his conscience. He loves Beethoven's Violin Concerto, but has become aware that the streets seethe around him, that elegant hotel rooms are likely to shatter into shards of glass which tear and bloody the skin.

They do so only in dreams (Shawn's monologue dates from 1990), but he's become aware how far his world is from that of the Colombian chambermaid who keeps his room - in whatever hotel wherever it is this week - clean and expensively tidy.

It's an apposite revival for these troubled times, when the glass shards are more likely to fly for real. But, as the argument's become more familiar in recent years, there's a problem. Stewart Porter plays at a high level of indignation - much of it self-directed. You feel like offering a nice cup of tea and trying to calm him down, gently advising that blood pressure's a more immediate threat in his condition.

It's unfair, of course: Shawn is hitting real concerns. But a less frenetic approach than Guy Hollands' production provides could forestall the feeling that these revelations no longer seem too new in 2003. Learning to live with the fear would bring our protagonist up to date with others in his world. As it is, there's danger of the fevered account dwindling into self-indulgence.

Porter's not helped by Guy Hollands' curious staging. We really need to be talked to (is this the piece Shawn wrote to perform to fellow guests at dinner parties?). In the Citizens' studio Porter is seated facing the shining blank wall of Coco Hewitt's shiny, all-white set.

The audience in this tiny space sits at either end of the studio's length: all are side on to the performer. He has to keep swinging between his two banks of spectators.

There may be a thematic idea in the minimally sophisticated, blank-wall he faces, but practically the staging leads to an over-pitched, underwhelming delivery: hard emotion's difficult to take side on. then end-on, then from behind. A case where less could give more.

Cast:
Stewart Porter

Director: Guy Hollands
Designer: Coco Hewitt
Lighting: Paul Sorley

2003-02-21 16:43:08