UPSIDE DOWN To 24 August

Edinburgh - Fringe

UPSIDE DOWN
DOTheatre at Theatre Workshop 34 Hamilton Terrace. Venue 20
3.15pm
Runs 1hr 25min

TICKETS 0131 226 5425

Physically adept reworking of Frankenstein that has wider resonancesRussia's DOTheatre hit out with an impassioned work that goes beyond its model to echo both Oepidal and political themes.

It's all done with tremendous physical skill, used both for stylised realism - the new-born creature flexing out his muscles and joints in a series of physical moves recalling the anatomical drawings of Vesalius - and outright exaggeration - the mother figure knitting frantically until both needles and then her body burst out of her confined room.

As the new creature tries out his body, or he and his 'father' combine or contest in movement the insistent score sounds almost impossibly peaceful, though with a slight sense of something not quite in place, or scrapes and stretches fretfully.

And as the two fire pistols, crouching under the grinning, sinister, red flag-waving 'mother' figure, the birth of a political monster clings to this invigorating, excellently performed work - a monster undercut when the heroic peasant-woman becomes a music-box doll-figure, rotating to a tinkling Internationale.

Excellent, that is, while it sticks to movement. I don't think it's only the actors' admirable use of English that makes the few spoken sections less powerful.

But then, see this show and you'll understand why anything would be hard-pressed to rival the trio's physical skill and invention.

Performers:
Evgeny Kozlov, Alexander Bondarev, Irina Koslova

Director: Evgeny Kozlov

Aurora Nova season produced by fabrik, Potsdam and Komedia, Brighton.
Season sponsor: Cafedirect

2002-08-18 11:01:50