Edinburgh Fringe 2014
Great Artists Steal
Theatreaverse
Genre: Drama
Venue: the Space at venue 45
Festival: Edinburgh Fringe
Low Down
Man and woman await a new inventor. We discover that man and woman help inventors to invent, they then steal the invention and the inventor is killed.
Review
The man and woman are waiting on their new inventor. Their speech comes across as a kind of baby like English but we find later that it is Anglais. The arrival of the new inventor, who speaks French, is greeted by the man becoming increasingly jealous and the woman becoming infatuated by him. The new inventor creates a weeel which eventually becomes a weehl. The woman falls for him as the previous inventor discovered love and she had fallen for him before man killed him. In a predictable finale woman and inventor dispose of man to await a new woman arriving; what could possibly go wrong…
The narrative here was predictable but no less entertaining for that reason. This was skilfully crafted and performed as an entire world was created within which the show was delivered. The Anglais was initially annoying at first but once you got into the flow of it the audience and I found it amusing. I was seated by two members of the Space crew and their enthusiasm for the show kept me there. One of them was in on her day off – great dedication from the Space Team!
All three performers were excellent and their performances were never less than convincing. This was clearly important as they had to sell this as an entire concept. They did so with aplomb. Technically the set was great with a chalkboard upon a strange rug and scattered relics of previous inventive periods. The make up for both man and woman also provided sufficient distance from the clean cut younger man – the inventor.
It took me some time to really appreciate this piece and much of that appreciation came after I had left the theatre. It was whimsical and amusing rather than laugh out loud funny but the basic premise of a younger man taking the place of a man followed by the new person coming into the triumvirate being a younger woman does work. We are left imagining what is likely to happen having seen what happened before and whilst I may not be overly confident that it taught me anything new, it certainly had me chuckling at times and afterwards thinking more on the theatricality of it. It was the theatricality and the way in which the actors gave us such commitment in trying to enlist us into their world that was so impressive. They are a company I would seek out to see again and hope I have more of an emotional response to the subject matter but as performers I would have absolutely no worries.
