Decided to take myself to the theatre tonight - the Traverse is Edinburgh's home for new writing, particularly work with local flavour. Wound up nattering to an aspiring writer before and after the show, which was unexpected and cool. The venue itself is small, highly raked and I had a real sense of the experimental vibe of the whole place.
Ciara is a single-act, single-performer show a little over an hour and a quarter long in which we gradually hear the story unfold as to how the title character (also the narrator) came to be sitting in a derilect warehouse on the outskirts of Glasgow in a party dress. Blythe Duff does a spectactular job. There's a huge amount of emotion in the telling of the story and I was laughing, gasping, tooth-sucking... right along with the rest of the small but clearly engaged audience. I should also nod to the tech guys at this point, as the strategic minimalist lighting and occasional incidental music really enhanced an already fantastic performance.
I certainly plan to get hold of the script to add to my collection, not least to go through it for suitable-length segments of monologue. The story ranges through diversions and digressions along with the main thread of the story, touching on sex, drugs, abuse, suicide, murder, family, love, art, extravagance, arson, betrayal, children (and lack of them) and eventual redemption. I have a lot of respect for anyone tackling over an hour's worth of script on their own, but far more so for just how believable and emotive it was - really like being told the story over drinks or something. And the venue lends itself to that - each of us were talked to directly at some point I think, especially those of us down front where we could probably be at least partly seen from stage.
My thoughts on this are somewhat scattered, mostly summed up by my inability to think or say anything but "wow" for a few seconds after the lights came up. I can say with certainty I'm looking forward to revisiting the script later.
No comments:
Post a Comment