To direct or not to direct
Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009
Trends in Edinburgh this year were more or less self-indulgent autobiographical ramblings, a mind-numbing tendency to camouflage by meta-theatrical devices that you didn’t have much to say in the first place and a predilection by some dramatists to venture onto the territory of the musical.
With David Greig’s Midsummer and Che Walker’s Been So Long two of the most prestigious examples for the latter were on at the Traverse. Both were directed by the playwrights themselves. I saw them back to back and the difference could not have been greater. The charm of Greig’s piece lay in its deep rootedness in Edinburgh topography. It was rightly not only described as a love story between an unlikely couple but also as a love letter to the city. Greig developed further the dramaturgy of Yellow Moon and with Cora Bissett and Matthew Pidgeon achieved an exhilarating lightness and directness of playing. His directing appeared commendably unobtrusive but directing it was, which is more than could be said for Che Walker’s effort.
Admittedly Walker did not have the advantage of the intimate Traverse 2 space and had to fill the main auditorium instead. Still it would not have been necessary to let some of his actors belt out every line as if they thought they were playing Easter Road stadium. The whole show felt strained and forced, an impression also due to the fact that the dramatist had cut his original rather verbose 1998 play down to the bare bones of a trite and banal plot with characters you hardly felt interested in at all. Walker’s Camden High Street setting had none of the atmospheric quality Greig’s evoked Edinburgh locations oozed in spades. What remained of the text sounded like Jez Butterworthish “Ain’t I a tough geezer/yard gal”-speak.
The cast was absolutely left in the lurch by a “director” who could not even properly block simple changes of position between a seating area and the bar. So the evening clunked along and its 95 minutes felt considerably longer than Greig’s 105. It was half-way rescued only by Arthur Darvill’s music and a cast whose singing abilities much exceeded their acting talents. In Been So Long the “plot” seemed merely a feeble excuse for the songs, in Midsummer Gordon McIntyre’s compositions enhanced an already strong story. A successful romantic comedy with songs avoiding the trap of corniness – who would have imagined?
P.S.: As increasingly only Dominic Cavendish and I used the chance to post blogs on theatreVOICE, I thought I’ll also call it a day. My first one had been about the Edinburgh fringe, too, so it looks like a dramaturgically appropriate way to end.
