On the Waterfront & Fall

From August 2008

The Edinburgh Festival means different things to different people: world class opera & ballet, cutting-edge drama, book readings, disgraced politicians hosting chat shows, paying £17 to watch a bloke off the telly tell lame jokes & say "c**t" a few times, Australians tying their private parts in knots, heavy drinking in the Speigel Garden & multi-media installations such as the box office where you can't buy tickets. Valid art forms all, and for 4 weeks every summer Edinburgh embraces them.

For me the Edinburgh Festival means feverishly scanning the Edinburgh Festival Fringe programme when it is published in June, marking dozens of events that I wish to attend then failing to go the majority of them. Still, it's the thought that counts and as I write this the Festival is a mere 24 hours old & I've managed to make it to two plays which is probably more than most of The Scotsman reviewers.

It will be of no surprise to regular readers to learn that like the film Jaws, I have never seen the 1954 classic On The Waterfront which has been brought to the stage by Steven Berkoff. The production's website modestly describes it as "an amazing piece of theatre" but for once I think hyperbole might be justified. Good theatre should draw you in from the start and make you forget everything else e.g. the fact that I had been unable to sleep the previous night due to the sounds of an an all night rave in a nearby field. And indeed after the woman in front of me had stopped texting, I felt that I was in 1950's New York. I'd like to be able to tell you that it was very Berkovian production but since I've never knowingly seen a Berkoff production I couldn't really say. If I was writing for The Scotsman I would tell you that it was an ensemble piece but since I'm not all I'll say is that not one of the 12 strong cast could be faulted. If Berkoff ever gets round to staging Jaws I'll be first in the queue.

And so a 15 minute mad dash from the Pleasance to the Traverse Theatre only to find that the start of Fall by Zinnie Harris had been delayed by 35 minutes. All part of the festival experience I suppose and how thoughtful of the Traverse to lay on iced water for the waiting audience as we melted in the heat. (Jon Morgan, take note: customer service = happy theatre goers.) If Traversian is a word then Fall is a Traversian play. With a tagline of "In the aftermath of horrific civil conflict, a new country is preparing for the mass execution of its war criminals" there was little likelihood of anyone tying their nob in a reef knot during this production although the word "c**t" was used frequently. Given the recent arrest of former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic this play could hardly have been more topical. From the opening monologue spoken by Geraldine Alexander through some grim scenes of internment to the shocking finale this is a gem. Dominic Hill became the Artistic Director of the Traverse earlier this year and Fall is his first production; on this evidence he is truly Traversian.


On The Waterfront, Pleasance, 2pm until 25th August
Fall, Traverse Theatre, various times until 24th August

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