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Went to see Titus Andronicus in the Botanic Gardens performed by the Flexible Deadlock Theatre as part of the West End Festival. The performance started after the Gardens closed at 9.30pm. The company have an ongoing interest in experimenting with different environments and performance styles and most of the cast were drawn from the local community, the University and the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama.
After each Act we moved to a different location in the Gardens and being in the open air it got fairly chilly as the performance was over two hours long. However, my partner in crime Rob had remembered to bring a flask and we were fortified with hot coffee and rum to see us through this Shakespearan bloodbath.
The poor, unfortunate Lavinia, daughter of Titus had her hands cut off and during the play heads were held up on sticks but fortunately were discreetly covered with bags. Some of the audience laughed at the bloody scenes presumably to avoid fainting! The plot was a Roman bloodbath full of scheming, conniving women and really held your interest which helped you to forget the cold! It was a difficult play but was well managed by the company The final act was in the Palm House and ended with a huge applause from a very appreciative audience. (Frances McLeod - Westender)
While Quarantine make you face your fellow audience members, the Glasgow-based Flexible Deadlock company prefer to have you follow them on foot. Following the success of last year's promenade performance of Love's Labours Lost they have opted to puncture the gentility of this year's West End Festival by taking us on an altogether different journey.
When you are invited to a Shakespeare-in-the-gardens production you do not usually anticipate rape, mutilation, mass murder and cannibalism. But then, you do not usually expect the subject of your midsummer stroll to be Titus Andronicus.
The gardens, and the Botanics' main glasshouse, are used with ingenuity. By staging the piece late at night, director Leah Altman has turned the receding place natural light to her dramatic adavntage with the atmospeheric use of flaming torches.
The play itself, while it regularly tips from horrifying violence into the macabre melodrama, carries terrible resonances of modern conflicts (think Rwanda or Kosovo). The mainly strong performances are able to overcome Martin McNaughton's wooden Saturninus to offer another accomplished Flexible Deadlock production.
The setting could not have been lovelier for this bloodiest of plays. These lush and slightly exotic gardens took on on a hazy glow as the sun descended behind the trees. And as the shadows lengthened, the Moon lent its light to what unfolded.
Both surroundings and atmosphere would have been perfect for A Midsummer Night's Dream. Instead, terrible deeds were depicted while, just yards away on Great Western Road, life went on as normal.
Never have I felt it so easy to forget the outside world as I did while watching this production by Flexible Deadlock of Shakespeare's troubling tale of ethnic hatred.
Powerful use of space turned the gardens from pleasure ground to killing fields. It chillingly brought home the message that the worst of things can happen in the best of places.
Titus Andronicus is on one level a play about how people read each other. Deceit seen as truth, and vice versa, are commom forms of corruption. Flexible Deadlock took this further and showed that for some there can never be truth under any circumstances in what the other side says.
It was the 'cruel irreligious piety' spoken by Tamora and it was handled here with fine use of facial expression to convey hidden emotions.
Katherine Morley as Lavinia used her fine, mobile face potently and Pene Herman-Smith's Tamora brought a touch of the rolling-eyed femme fatale to the Queen of the Goths.
Here was an extreme story of inhabited by recognisable people and events. It wanted to make the link with Shakespeare's Rome and the here and now. It did so deftly, never labouring the point.
It seemed there were different schools of thought on how to put over Shakespeare's words. Mark Coleman's Titus was of the traditional declamatory type (and none the worse for it) while Martin McNaughton as Saturninus had a poorer grasp of the speech rhythms.
Young members of the cast gave eager, unfussy readings. In the case of Dumisani-Sizwe Mbebe, who played the deadly Aaron, I moved from annoyance at picking up only every third word to thinking that his was one of the finest performances of the night.
If this was something of a dramatic Tower of Babel, it did not matter. There was a clear enough vision behind this show to bring it together.
Director Leah Altman used the Botanic Gardens as pure theatre and it is to her credit that there was no over-egging of the pudding with unneccessary dramatic or visual effects.
Part of the Glasgow's West End Festival, this production's style and location perfectly recognised the special nature of the event. Such a show is what summer is all about. And I, for one, will never look at the Botanic Gardens in the same light again.
Derek Rogers and Sam de Smith provided very interesting and highly entertaining insight into the spoken word. The highly complex subject of phonetics and accents was presented simply and humourously with a bit of history and theatre thrown in. Following the example of Alexander Graham Bell's family, (his father Alexander Melville Bell had a strong interest in the use of written symbols expressing the spoken word - as depicted on The Royal Bank of Scotland's £1 note) who carried out similar exercises in 1862 or thereabouts; the audience were invited to participate in a demonstration of how written symbols can show accent and intonation as well as content of speech.
It was all very good fun and saved from becoming an English v Scottish battle by the international make up of the audience. Yes, we have tourists at the West End Festival: members of the audience included a wide range of nationalities - Italian, Irish, "born in Cairo", London, Edinburgh, Bathgate and "The Trendy West End". Michael Dale, WEF Director's parents were also there! - he is the image of his dad.
Yes this was a lot of fun and although not slick performers the phonetic twosome held the attention of the audience, got them involved and everyone had a bit of a laugh.
Pat Byrne, 16th June, 2000.
Monday to Saturday Daily - 11.00 a.m. - 4.00 p.m. and Tuesday and Thursdays 7.00 - 9.00 p.m. FREE
This is one exhibition I am going back to as I would like to spend some more time there and also take some photographs of the highly colourful and very interesting displays. Linda Begley the Development Officer responsible for the exhibition is enthusiastic and very willing to talk about the ideas behind the multi-cultural millennium exhibition, which highlights the clothing and customs involved in weddings.
The exhibition includes a tableaux of a Christian Wedding and also a gorgeous wedding cake, favours, invitations and rites of service. Weddings from other cultures include: Bengali Hindu, West African Ghanian and Jewish. A Victorian Funeral is also on view and 'The Veil' - an exhibition telling the story of women and islam.
Make some time for this exhibition as there really is a lot to see - you will also enjoy a look around this really wonderful building.
Pat Byrne, 15th June, 2000.
The exhibition 'Four Weddings and a Funeral" is linked to Gilmorehill's themed film festival 19 - 24th June.
'Revelations - Life issues through Scottish Film'. Revelations is presented by West End Churches together and films include
Orphans - Monday, 19th June, 7.00 p.m.
(post screening debate on religious symbolism / social inclusion)
Breaking the Waves, Tuesday, 20th June, 7.00 p.m.
Post screening debate - nature of love and religion.
Chariots of Fire, Wednesday, 21st June, 7.00 p.m.
Post screening debae - anti-semitism / christian obedience.
Regeneration - Thursday, 22nd June, 7.00 p.m.
Post screening debate - pacifism / justified war.
Braveheart - Friday, 23 June, 7.00 p.m.
Post screening debate - nationalism / cultural identity.
Loch Ness - Saturday, 24th June, 7.00 p.m.
Children's matinee.
Both Metro Life (12th June) and Go Magazine, June Edition provided previews of Michael Cabot's Production - Artistic Director of the London Classic Theatre Company he is taking Oleanna on a Scottish tour. It has already played Kilmarnock, Cumbernaul and Inverness.
Go Magazine asked him to explain why Oleanna?"When it was written in 1993 it was extremely relevant with the spread of Political Correctness in America" - It does not have the same capacity to shock in the year 2000 when PC has "become entrenched, inescapable"
However, Cabot feels the message of Oleanna to be even more potent today with the spread of the PC phenomena. The audience certainly seem to react and Cabot observes that they are unusually vocal and emotional. He is enthusiastic about the performance given (in this two 'man' show) by Amy Bayless and Chris MacDonald. He also had praise for Gilmorehill "Gilmorehill are so enthusiastic and energetic. There's a good vibe, so hopefully it should be another sell out".
Metro Life - Metro, 12th JuneMetro highlights the themes of what constitutes political correctness in Oleanna "arguably the most talked about play of the Nineties". In Oleanna "a pompous and patronising college professor John rides roughshod over Carol, a struggling feamle studen who is his intellectual inferior, before tghe tables are turned and her false accusation of rape sees him lose his livelihood"......Alan Chadwick provides the warning that this is "definitely not first-date fare"
Robert Thomson's critique highlights the piqancy of watching "David Mamet's ...sharp, sadistic two-hander" in Gilmorehill - former examination hall for Glasgow University students. "Written as a critique of political correctness - at a time when "pc" was still an aspiration rather than a condemnation of the po-faced liberal - Mamet's play is a powerful indictment of worthy agendas taken to extremes".
He describes the performances as "imbalanced" with the Professor (Christ MacDonnell) and student (Amy Bayless) and "pitched at the extremes of devil-incarnate and naive fool". However, he praises Cabot's direction of this London Classic Theatre Company production which he manages to keep "zipping along" despite flaws relating to Mamet - the writer's "staccato rhythms".
"Glasgow's West End Festival ignored a downpour to hit the streets with a splash of colour..........Hundreds of people lined Byres Road to cheer on the participants and even a brief cloudburst didn't dampen the party spirit".
The event had a strong Scottish theme with William Wallace, Mary Queen of Scots, Rab C. Nesbitt and the Big Yin all very visible in the parade. Music lovers were well catered for with four stages at various points on Byres Road.
The festival runs until the 25th June. Add your own reviews by clicking on the comment button below.