last year, Belarus Free Theatre (BFT) went underground on their home turf with a piece based on Kathy Acker's text, New York City in 1979.
Now, on the Fringe – and unlikely to go home soon, if ever – BFT delivers a raw, visceral companion work, A Reply to Kathy Acker: Minsk 2011. It too, like Acker’s writing, gets under the skin of a city in terms of sex. What’s acceptable? What’s suppressed? What effect do these polarities have on how a society behaves – in Minsk strip clubs are encouraged, gay clubs are shut down and Gay Pride marchers beaten up – and how it is seen by outsiders?
This theme is delivered with the time honoured economy of radical performance, whose minimalism affects props, costumes and projected translations but the actors have the intensity and the gallows humour that declares “these are truths”. One man jokes that girls find scars sexy: the interrogations and beatings, mostly for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, have left everyone scarred by leader Lukashenko’s repressive regime.
The outside world, however, doesn’t intervene. “Belarus is not sexy,” says a wistful girl. Oil, gas, diamonds are sexy: her country has none of them. And so, rendered in wry, astute vignettes, people get drunk on cheap wine, girls working as “exotic dancers” are assessed like livestock by government inspectors and Minsk sinks lower into a torpor of unresisting uniformity. There’s no whinging, no histrionics: just a company of talents, mourning their exile with wit, imagination and a pain we can feel.
If Martin, the central character in Steal Compass, Drive North, Disappear – Rachel Blackman’s solo show – feels anything it’s probably along the lines of “why me?” as his world falls apart. Blackman, who plays all the characters, including a hilariously forthright five-year-old, tunes us in to Martin’s self-centred universe without being malign or judgmental at how he uses and discards the various women who support his ego. When the going gets tough, Martin disappears as if the emotional mess isn’t his fault, and yet, despite his cowardliness, Blackman makes him almost likeable. Quite an achievement.
On the other hand, Hannah Ringham makes it really hard to like her: in Hannah Ringham’s Free Show (bring money), by Glen Neath she keeps pestering us for cash. Coming up with hard luck stories that we know aren’t true – fingers crossed – but which are probably true for the begging individuals who badger us at cash machines or outside restaurants. “How much am I worth?” demands Ringham. Does she mean as a performer?; as a human being? Either way, it’s not comfortable to be told you’re free to do what you want when Ringham is pulling out all the stops in emotional blackmail. Interestingly, young women are the first to donate, but by the end we’d just about all coughed up. I suspect embarrassment played a part: not valuing such a relentless, discomfiting performer really isn’t in the spirit of Summerhall, or the Battersea Arts Centre (BAC) who brought this, and other productions, to the Fringe.
A collaboration between Melanie Wilson and Abigail Conway – every minute, always – was another BAC goodie. Pairs of us donned headphones, sat in a nicely evoked little cinema, and, while extracts from Brief Encounter were mixed with other imagery, a voice whispered in our ear, prompting little intimacies with the person next to us, who was receiving separate suggestions for gentle interaction. Nothing rampantly intrusive: the touch of a hand, an arm round a shoulder – wistfully romantic for couples, oddly meaningful for strangers since Brief Encounter epitomises the flash of sudden attraction that can’t go beyond imagination into real life. (Though who knows what outcomes this clever, charming reverie encourages.)
Maybe a memory of it will fetch up, along with the other confiding voices in Helen Cole’s haunting, absorbing installation, We See Fireworks. It sound simple. Various light bulbs dangle overhead. Unseen, unidentified strangers volunteer taped memories of performances – some staged, while others were moments of a personal nature – that combined and heightened into a recollected theatricality. You listen. Bulbs flare collectively or dwindle into lone flickerings. And the power of stories – secrets, in many cases – seizes you, makes you hungry for more. Not least when, as happened, I heard a guy speak feelingly about a show I’d seen and reviewed. I saw the stars I’d awarded it, not just the fireworks ... I’d love this to tour all around Scotland.
Minsk 2011 has a final performance at 1pm today. Other shows have now ended.
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