Wednesday, August 27, 2014

MORE FESTIVAL PERFORMANCES AND VISITING THE ROYAL YACHT BRITANNIA

The Festival continues. I attended three more "Fringe" performances, and two from the Edinburgh Festival. The Fringe is ending, and the Edinburgh International Festival goes on until the end of the month. 

RACE - by David Mamet - Pulitzer Prize winning playwright.
"Race" follows three attorneys, two black and one white who defend a white man charged with a violent crime against a black woman. Mamet has said "theme is race and the lies we tell each other on the subject". The acting was superb.
It was a real treat to see a professional play, written by Mamet, and acted in such a brilliant manner. It played on Broadway with Kerri Washington in 2009-2010....so it was certainly READY FOR BROADWAY


MEN IN THE CITIES - Chris Goode and Company in association with the Royal Court Theatre.
Three time Fringe First winner Chris Goode returns with an incendiary piece of expermintal storytelling that presents a challenging,radically humane portrait of how we live now. Mr. Goode brilliantly acts for 90 minutes as one man portraying the lives of 6 men and their different interactions in life, love, family, work, betrayal and death.
He captures the essence of the nature of man.
Unfortunately at the conclusion, Mr Goode spirals into a rant, that is very distracting and unnecessary to conclude his monologue. If he eliminated this bit it would be .....READY FOR BROADWAY

BIANCO- NoFit State Circus
- returning to the Fringe with sell-out shows, Bianco, NoFit State brings back their anarchic and totally immersive promenade circus in a burst of energy.
This was a fabulous "Cirque du Soleil" dance, acrobatic, trapeze, with the stage contantanly changing during the show, while the audience walked around the parameter of the acts.
The background band really charged up the performance.  ...this is definately READY FOR BROADWAY

THE INTERNATIONAL EDINBURGH BOOK FESTIVAL

I attended one event during this festival. It was a conversation with Hannah Berry,Pat Mills, Adam Murphy and Will Morris.
It was narrated by Denisa Mina. These authors were story creators that created comic books and stories of how the dystopian genre evolved to explore the idea of how individuals would cope with oppressive governments or post-apocalyptic worlds. It was interesting, but  it was not something that I really understood the subject or the media genre. 

THE EDINBURGH INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL

SWEET MAMBO - by Pina Bausch, director and choreographer. She was born in Solingen, Germany in 1940 and died in 2009 - 3 weeks after the death of Merce Cunningham. Embracing jazz, opera, folk and popular music, she created 46 pieces in her 36 year career, establishing her reputtion as one of the most significant choreographers of our time. Her theater comany is known as Tanztheater Wuppertal. "Sweet Mambo" uses only nine dancers (three men and six women). There is the raspy - voiced talkative and dismissively dominant actress; the volitile hysterical diva; and the nervous reserved woman.
All of these characters ran across the stage in long evening gowns with the men chasing them at various times. It was a genre of dance that I didn't understand. Ms Bausch was extremely talented and widely recognized for her works of dance genius, however I WALKED OUT.

HELEN LAWRENCE - from the Canadian High Commission to the United Kingdom.
This was an interesting stage setting. The actors were behind a movie screen. A black and white movie was shown over the actors creating the background, moving parts, and the set.
The camera panned in on the closeups of the actors which placed them live, in the black and white movie background. This created a "film noir" effect. The play and the theme of "Helen Lawrence" mark it out as a noir-inspired work. The murky postwar underworld is exposed, and the double-dealing characters hatch plans to improve their own situations in morally suspect ways. The heart of the story is a murder, a quintessential narrative feature of film noir. The action takes place in Vancouver in the 1940's. I really enjoyed this piece and I think it's READY FOR BROADWAY. 

ROYAL YACHT BRITANNIA - This was Queen Elizabeth's yacht that the John Brown Shipyards personally built for her and Prince Phillip in 
1952. Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip used this to visit many of their colonies until it was decommissioned in 1997. It is permanently docked in Edinburgh harbor, and is a tourist attraction.
The honeymoon suite for Princess Margaret and Anthony Armstrong-Jones 1960; 1973, Princess Anne and Captain Mark Phillips; 1981, Charles and Diana; 1986 Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson. 
This was Queen Elizabeth's Room with an adjoining room for Prince Phillip
AND WALKING AROUND THE STREETS OF EDINBURGH - This is where Sean Connery was born. He spent his childhood years here. He was across from the dairy. He delivered milk as a boy from this neighborhood. Sir Sean - you've come a long way!!
The center window is his house.
A view behind the building where I have been living in Edinburgh.....and a pub that I visited called the Royal ....


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