David Leddy’s Sub Rosa, Hill Street Theatre
Anatomy of Fantasy, Assembly Rooms
Martin Creed Ballet Work No1020, The Traverse
At different times, across different Fringes, we’ve seen Derevo give us heart-breaking romantic whimsy and ribald demonic mayhem. The two have vividly combined on occasions. Always devised and performed, moreover, with a splendour and finesse of intense physicality that speaks, through exhaustively trained bodies, of the exquisite Russian traditions of dance, clowning and mime that are a bedrock element of this company’s world-renowned identity. But there has never been a Derevo show quite like the Harlekin ( ***** ) now playing at the Pleasance.
Watching Anton Adasinsky inhabit the age-old, timeless form of Harlequin -- or Petrushka, Pierrot or Mr Punch, since they are the same elemental free spirit -- is to witness a celebration of wordlessly expressive artistry shade into a poignant elegy for a theatrical dimension that long predates the machine age.
Think travelling puppet-booths where love and hate -- and all the comedy of errors that lie in between -- are played out at the pulling of strings. Of how the stories and characters filter into common parlance, with Harlekin’s escapades proving an inspiration to writers, composers and artists across centuries -- and his hapless adoration of Columbine emerging as an archetype for all tragic, great-hearted fools who offer beauty to a philistine world.
All this is superbly encompassed by a Derevo production that delivers a far-reaching, sophisticated mesh of themes by going back to the skilful basics of clown-work and cunningly lo-tech staging.
So even if you can’t pinpoint all of Adasinsky’s references, you can still revel in the humour and pathos that he unlocks in the episodes from Harlekin’s history. His own performance is a tour de force throughout. His body is as malleable, it seems, as the bendy wire that shapes itself into necessary props.
But that awe-inspiring elasticity has a focus well beyond wowing us. This piece really is about the heart and soul of tragi-comic physicality. It’s a statement of Adasinsky’s own commitment to the rigour of his art form, a bravura flourish of constantly honed flesh and blood that speaks through movement -- and stillness -- of our own dreams and disappointments.
In this, his Harlekin is ably abetted by Elena Yarovaya -- first as the skittish, self-centred Columbine who trashes his gifts (and eats the very heart of him), then as the deliciously capering little Monkey who becomes his faithful companion. Anna Budanova, in various guises, provides a framework that opens with images of puppet-play but ends with the Puppet-master trudging across the stage followed by a mechanical engine. Fight back, like Derevo -- put aside your techno gizmos, folks, and feast on an outstanding piece of physical theatre.
David Leddy’s Sub Rosa ( ****) , first seen as a site-specific promenade-mystery tour at Glasgow’s Citizens’ Theatre, has acquired fresh nuances of harrowing hypocrisy in its relocation to the Hill Street Theatre and the interior warren of the Masonic Lodge that ordinarily occupies the premises there. Leddy has tweaked his skein of monologues to take account of the venue’s own history -- in doing so, the Brotherhood values of truth, goodness and of aiding the needy and distressed become a corrupted backdrop to the activities of a (supposed) mason, the turn-of-the century theatrical impressario Hunter.
His predatory abuse of pre-pubescent girls -- like his exploitation of all who work for him at the Winter Palace -- goes unchallenged until the arrival of a feisty 11-year-old called Flora. We never see her, or Hunter. But as we’re led from room to room, we encounter the ghosts who can regale us with the brutal details of Flora’s short life and sadistically protracted demise. It’s the stuff of saucy tittle-tattle garnished with the gore of guignol horrors, but Leddy’s burnished writing and some truly compelling performances spin Sub Rosa into something altogether more unnerving, more profound, more insistently of our own times.
For even as we get curious- greedy for more back-stage confidences and revelations about Hunter’s perversions, the awareness grows that the callous indifference to cruelty and humiliation that pervades life at the Winter Palace isn’t some vignette of yesteryear. And during Fringe-time, when all manner of hopeful Floras are chasing stardom, there’s a chill to Sub Rosa that is hard to shake off.
Do Theatre’s Anatomy of Fantasy ( *** ) has so many striking moments, so many strong visual images and flurries of fierce choreography -- a fair few of them involving scythes -- that it’s sad and disappointing to come away feeling that, unlike their shows of yore, this was more about style than substance. The themes of life and death, change and decay, see a man caught up in fantastical encounters with siren-demons who play to his senses before caging him in their cat’s cradles of red thread. It’s raunchy, raucous -- there’s even an outburst of percussive flamenco -- but while it teases the eye, it doesn’t touch the heart.
Martin Creed’s Ballet Work No 1020 ( **** ) is only at the Traverse until August 15. Grab a ticket while you can and enjoy an engaging display of consummately organised shambles that has echoes of Warhol’s Factory gambits as well as Creed’s own fascinating forays into on/off systems. The five ballet dancers follow his rules with meticulous precision, their limbs -- and the basic techniques they use -- interacting with Creed’s deceptively simple little songs or the riffs his band plays. It does scatty and occasionally scatological (on video), and it’s so genial and enjoyable the vast intricacy of it only starts to tickle your mind afterwards. It’s art alive -- and it leaves you wanting to play with light switches. Times vary -- so check when it’s on. Or off …
