THE SLAB BOYS. To 21 February.
Edinburgh/Tour
THE SLAB BOYS
by John Byrne
Traverse Theatre One In rep to 24 January then tour to 21 February 2004
Tue-Sun 8pm except 11.30am 10,17,24 January
Runs 2hr 15min One interval
TICKETS 0131 228 1404
www.traverse.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 30 November
Not quite a classic after all, but a comic period-piece.Three theatres, forty years - and a trilogy to mark the fact. The Traverse, on the go in Lawnmarket, Grassmarket and nowadays Cambridge Street, marks its 40th by reviving John Byrne's Slab Boys trilogy, which brought fifties working-class Paisley to late 70s/early 80s theatregoing Edinburgh.
Byrne's trio came out in instalments; this first play places the characters' working lives - an industrial backshop where lads with other things on their minds prepare paint colours on the slabs that give the place, people and play their names. Offstage is Nirvana: the designers' office. Stories and dreams focus on promotion from mixer's slab to designer's desk.
Byrne's play stands outside its own period, but evokes mid-century angst with free-wheeling humour. Its world's made visible in Neil Warmington's dilapidated industrial shed, a metal corpse for the youthful energy wasting within.
The comic energy's sometimes dissipated especially in the second half to contrived farce. Hector's maltreatment seems desperate, and risks toppling sympathy for Phil, its chief instigator. Roxana Silbert's production may be responsible, and it may be deliberate. Her revival makes clear how different Spanky is when not egged-on by his Slab mate, and how Phil's cruelty is driven by his frustration with life.
Maybe youthful rebellion, even under the eyes of a James Dean poster, is no longer so supercool.. Or maybe younger audience members still find Phil a hero, Hector a nerd and posh Alan deserving everything that's threatened to his Parker pen.
There remains a picture of industry more at war with itself than any external competition. Doing as little as possible, the lads face impotent rage from John Kazek's designer (overly disfigured by plooks facial pustules) and Michael Mackenzie's fine blustering manager with more decibels than authority to his voice, living off his own fantasy-past of a real' War.
Molly Innes seems uncharacteristically limited as mouthy Lucille, the looked-for belle of every slab boy's ball, but Una Maclean brings the sense of a life where pushing a tea-trolley and keeping the lads at bay is merely a paid extension to the hard life cleaning a home and keeping men in order.
Spanky: Iain Robertson
Hector: Alan Tripney
Phil: Paul Thomas Hickey
Willie Curry: Michael Mackenzie
Jack Hogg: John Kazek
Alan: Grant O'Rourke
Sadie: Una Maclean
Lucille: Molly Innes
Director: Roxana Silbert
Designer: Neil Warmington
Lighting: Rick Fisher
Sound: Neil Alexander
Voice coach: Ros Steen
Assistant director: Lorne Campbell
2003-12-11 08:50:16