Billed as “Scotland’s new writing theatre” the Traverse plays host to the upper end of the Edinburgh Fringe’s theatrical offerings – the more serious plays. It’s proper theatre here, even if it’s experimental in form, and you won’t be disappointed. In fact, in 2006 the Traverse’s festival programme gained a record breaking 14 awards, and in 2007 looks set to replicate this success.
Established in 1963, with a reputation for supporting new writers and contemporary theatre, they hold script development workshops, rehearsed readings and public writing workshops, as well as producing several major new theatre productions plus a Scottish touring production each year.
From the cafe/bar with free wifi and a special festival menu, to the well designed theatre spaces – they’ve thought of almost everything.
I had booked to see two shows at the Traverse, and needed an extra ticket to one of them, Venus as a Boy, which had completely sold out. With six names in front of me on the returns list it wasn’t looking hopeful, the box office told me. I waited in line, chatting with a very excited old Scottish couple, who were practically crossing their fingers and toes with anticipation that they too would get a returned ticket. As our names were called it was like all their Christmases had come at once.
The show had looked interesting to me on the flyer, and had received some good pre-reviews, so unlike the Scottish couple, I was rather stupidly approaching it negatively, in a glass half empty way, thinking that it might not live up to the hype.
I couldn’t have been more wrong.
Venus as a Boy has been developed by the National Theatre of Scotland Workshop. In the last year they have supported thirty new projects, and Venus as a Boy is the second of three of these experimental projects that have been chosen for a Workshop Production – a small scale theatre event. The first was Falling, a site specific work in the streets of Glasgow, and the third is Rupture, which will appear at the Traverse in September.
If Venus as a Boy is anything to go by, the workshop programme must be truly amazing.
From the moment the actor, co-director and adaptor, Tam Dean Burn, stepped into the intimate Traverse 2 and introduced himself out of character, the audience were spellbound. Musician and author, Luke Sutherland, quietly set up and tuned his violins and guitars, connecting his amplifier, while Tam Dean Burn told us how the play came to be adapted from the book, which had in turn been written from taped recordings. Then the lights went down, he knelt on the edge of a white circle painted on the black floor, and became Cupid.
While so many plays are overwritten, telling us what happens and then deciphering it for us in case we missed the original point, the script for Venus as a Boy was a simple narrative of “the things that matter”. As Cupid lies dying, he explains how he got there, from childhood to his premature death. And it’s not a pretty story: a bullied child from Orkney, turned male prostitute in London’s Soho, it’s the seamier side of life. But there’s beauty in ugliness, so the cliché goes, and Tam Dean Burn takes this idea and gives it meaning, exposing what lies behind betrayal, love and sex.
His acting was flawless, captivating and mesmerising. In his introduction he mentioned that a movie was being made of the book, joking that he had no chance to play the role of Cupid in it as he was nowhere near the realm of gorgeous young boy that the script required. Perhaps the fickle world of film should reconsider. He played children, bullies, drag queens, transvestites, Romanian pimps, and every other character, with the occasional nod to Luke, playing in the background behind him. The minimalist set which consisted of a bench, bowl, wardrobe, some makeup and clothes, like the script, gave him everything he needed, nothing more, and helped him on his way.
I think the only thing that prevented a standing ovation was the audience being completely stunned into passivity by the power of what they’d witnessed. The old Scottish couple had grins from ear to ear as we made our way up the stairs, back to the real world, after an hour and a half in an alternate universe.
Returning the following morning to see The Walworth Farce, I felt sure that nothing could come close to the magic of Venus as a Boy. At 11am, the rather early start for a full length play had already put a downer on things: I felt like I was on a school excursion to see a bad Shakespeare performance.
I’d chosen The Walworth Farce because the blurb in the Fringe brochure had intrigued me, and it was by the highly acclaimed playwright Enda Walsh of Disco Pigs fame. Like a theatrical version of Groundhog Day, the play is set in a squalid housing estate on London’s Walworth Road, where each day the exact same events play out.
Like a play within a play within a play about a play, it explores the farce that lies within the tragedy of three Irishmen’s lives as they enact this daily drama ritual. The Guardian said it overestimates the audience’s intelligence – but this is not necessarily a bad thing. Giving the actors a clever script allows them to shine.
Walsh expects the audience to keep up with the three actors who play multiple characters and never leave the stage for almost two hours. Even though it takes a while to work out exactly what sinister things are going on in this dolls-house style cut away set, it’s not an impossible task, and you’re well rewarded for your efforts.
As the interval commences a fourth actor has just walked onto the set: the first outsider to come to their flat in years. It is possibly the best cliff hanger theatre could provide and we’re on the edge of our seats wanting to know what fate awaits her, alone, on the 15th floor with some serious basket cases.
While there’s a comic, slapstick flavour to the farce, tragic undertones are clear from the start, as the characters act, re-enact, and understand their lives and the world around them through theatre. Their fantasy world becomes ugly. Who will get the drama cup? There can be only one winner.
It really doesn’t get any better than this. If this all sounds too effusive, go and see them for yourself!
Venus as a Boy is a Herald Angel winner and The Walworth Farce is a Fringe First winner.
The Traverse Theatre is at 10 Cambridge Street, Edinburgh.
Following shows in Orkney and Ullapool, Venus as a Boy follows the journey of the novel, with shows until 26 August at the Traverse in Edinburgh, before moving to the Soho Theatre in London from 4-22 September. It will also show at The Citizen’s Theatre in Glasgow as part of Glasgay! From 30 October – 10 November, and as part of Homotopia at the Unity Theatre in Liverpool from 15-17 November.
The Walworth Farce also runs until 26 August at the Traverse in Edinburgh.
