THE TYPOGRAPHER'S DREAM. To 25 August.

Edinburgh - Fringe

THE TYPOGRAPHER'S DREAM
by Adam Bock

Bright Choice Productions at Pleasance Above To 25 August 2003
5.10pm
Runs 1hr 10min No inteerval

TICKETS: 0131 556 6550
Review: Timothy Ramsden 17 August

Large themes handled lightly in a striking, unobtrusively stylised way.Neat, very neat. As neat as the three characters lined-up behind a long table, panel discussion-like - except they speak to us in apparent isolation, each in their professional role. Geographer Annalise is the intellectual, taking (of course) the major share of the speech, rushing off to fetch supportive documentation.

Dave at least gets his sentences out. So he should, as a stenographer. It's just he has little to say, until his facility for experienced-based facts finds an opening in telling us the details of a stenographer's work.

Which leaves the typographer, Margaret. Her openings are bitten off by loquacious Annalise (do these figures each know of the others' presence?) What they share, these '-er' doers, with never an 'er' betwen them, is a desire for order.

Annalise defends her subject from dilution into Social Studies, asserting its independence as a science, a reflection of a particular, inquiring approach to the world and its events.

Dave's mind isn't so set, emerging evidence switching the court official's inner sympathies as he records with impartial, impersonal accuracy. But real life isn't like the neat appearances formal occupations concoct.

A strip light flutters out, flares back on. There's something unsettling this ordered world. Personal lives rarely manage the order of professional or occupational existences. When the lighting changes, the ordered line-up relaxes. Annalise and Dave argue on a personal level, engaged and embittered. Whose fault is 'it' anyway?

Finally, gradually, the typographer's dream emerges out of her growing realisation of how typography - font, punctuation and the like - can create tone, and therefore meaning. And of how she has the power to change type.

She dreams of high quality work, where every imperfection is smoothed out; paper, proofreading, typesetting become a perfect whole.

Adam Bock gives an intriguing, gracefully-written meditation on choice and decision-making, building a picture of how different types (of person) search for order and can contribute to a balanced world. Except, the ambition or desire to do this goes along with the personalities that clash to create diaorder.

Owen Lewis' production benefits from three strong performances, including a couple from Canada. An intriguingly enjoyable experience.

Annalise: Kathryn Akin
Dave: Kenneth Avery-Clark
Margaret: Nicola Redmond

Director: Owen Lewis
Designer: Carrie Southall
Lighting: Ben Pacey
Composer: Joseph Craig

2003-08-19 20:33:42