Review: Theatre

Dundee Rep

Neil Cooper

When a Morningside-accented Judas gives a two-part definition of the word "politics" in Matthew Hurt's ecclesiastical solo vehicle for Simon Callow, the applause provoked by its second half suggests more than a hint of recognition of its description of politicians as annoying insects in need of swatting. When Judas, seated at the centre of an otherwise empty row of chairs awaiting the Last Supper, goes on to describe the faithful rump of his former Messiah's followers as "masochists with a fetish for disappointment," the silence that follows is equally telling.

By this time Callow has already introduced us to many of the people who shaped Jesus or where shaped by him, in a version of the Gospel seen from a dozen points of view. Using a variety of largely northern accents beside a pile of chairs, we first of all meet Jesus's mother Mary and his brother James. In Callow's hands these become plain-talking Yorkshire folk, the apostles are hard-drinking Scousers and Scots caught up in the moment, while John The Baptist educates his cousin with the zeal of a Red Clydesider trade union leader.

As Callow darts ferociously between characters in Joseph Alford's production, first seen at the Lyric Theatre Belfast, a portrait emerges of the play's unseen figurehead as a charismatic radical and leader of a revolution thwarted by a privileged establishment. If Callow's versions of Herod and Pontius Pilate sound like Bullingdon boys at play, it's surely no coincidence. As the defeated dust themselves down following Jesus's apparent demise, what's left is a play about faith, hope and a very down-to-earth desire for change.

Richard Alston Dance Company

Festival Theatre, Edinburgh

Mary Brennan

So, what does it take to have the Festival Theatre audience cheering full-throated approval? The Richard Alston Dance Company, that's what, and here's why. Ten dancers: all with gold-standard technique yet possessed of distinctive individuality. Two choreographers, Alston himself and Martin Lawrance: both with an intuitive connection to music yet increasingly different in how they explore its dynamics in movement. One pianist, Jason Ridgeway, who contributes a punctilious yet soaring energy to the live playing of Lizst's Dante Sonata - the music for Lawrance's Burning, premiered in Edinburgh. You could add in lighting designs that see the very floor respond like a chameleon, flooding with colour washes as each piece unfolds internal shifts of mood and momentum.

The first half - Rejoice in the Lamb and Holderlin Fragments - has Alston in harmony with music by Britten and catching, in each case, the visionary joy of the texts that inspired the composer. Christopher Smart's manic religiosity reaches out in the upstretched arms and surging exuberance of Rejoice in the Lamb, where Smart's beloved cat Jeoffrey (Ihsaan de Banya) is the adorably frisky solace in his plunging glooms of isolation.

Lawrance's bravura Burning sets the sizzle factor alight in the second half, as he conjures up the emotional fall-out of Lizst's magnetic effect on female admirers: the woman he loves leaves him - but only after fiercely turbulent duets (electrifyingly danced by Liam Riddick and Nancy Nerantzi) have clinched them together in melting passion, then wrenched them apart in anguish. Alston's Overdrive ends proceedings on a fabulous surge of cunning interactions between red- and grey-clad dancers, who fast-foot it to the rippling loops of Terry Riley's Keyboard Study No 1. Look out Glasgow - this treat arrives in November!

Choir

Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh

Neil Cooper

When a middle-aged man walks on stage in his underwear, puts on a pair of bright scarlet shoes and declares himself the reincarnation of Judy Garland, evidence may suggest otherwise, but it's a provocative opening nevertheless to Lee Mattinson's solo outing about one man's belated coming to terms with who he is.

The man is Francis, a spoon-playing romantic in search of true love as he moves through the back-street club scene that becomes his own yellow brick road en route to salvation fronting a local community choir. Just as Francis finds a sense of belonging, alas, a one-night encounter with a building-site worker he obsesses over before being hit with a restraining order leaves him diagnosed with Aids.

Such a life and death litany is related in florid terms in Mattinson's script, which references the mundane everyday minutiae of Francis's existence in a way that resembles an Alan Bennett monologue. Jennifer Malarkey's production prefers busyness over stillness, however, as a mercurial Donald McBride puts his clothes on then takes them off again, as assorted celluloid images of Garland are beamed behind him. While this is never dull, there are times when Mattinson's words do not need such dressing up.

Presented by the Stockton-based Encounter Productions in association with Alnwick Playhouse, ARC Stockton, Arts Centre Washington and Northern Stage, the play and production were developed by the north east of England's Bridging the Gap scheme, designed to create and tour new theatre in the region. The result is an intermittently fascinating portrait of a man whose entire life is a musical, from cradle to grave.