Spotting Trains and Glasgow's hidden Kinetic gem

...Somewhat more 'real' than that of Danny Boyle's film...an altogether uglier, less glamorous image of drug-taking and addiction than we may remember from mid-nineties cinema.

Having gone through a slight cultural drought since the Fringe, I knew I would kick myself very hard indeed if I missed The Citz's recent production of Trainspotting. Leaving things till the last minute, as per, I managed to nab just about the last two seats for a Saturday matinée; all evening performances being completely sold out. Dubious as ever to drag my partner to the theatre (his being a musician as opposed to a thesp), at the risk that spending an uncharacteristically glorious Glasgow afternoon in a dark, crowded auditorium, watching a stage version of a book whose film adaptation he didn't particularly enjoy, might not be his idea of fun. Neither of us, however, were disappointed.

Not having read the book, I can't say how close or far this incarnation of Trainspotting was from the original. Several aspects, however, such as the political undertones surrounding Sectarian Scotland and The Troubles in Ireland do suggest that the stage version is more loyal to Welsh's writing. Another motif I enjoyed was the use of monologues - each character (Sick Boy, Begbie, Alison, etc) is creatively profiled by way of ten minute, one-to-one revelations to the audience; an intimacy we are not afforded in the film. The staging and scenography also seemed somewhat more 'real' than that of Danny Boyle's film. The famous toilet-diving and OD-ing sequences, for example, are largely naturalistic and without atmospheric Lou Reed and Blur overtures. This created an altogether uglier, less glamorous image of drug-taking and addiction than we may remember from mid-nineties cinema.

This production is not without its stylized moments, however; Renton's withdrawal-induced hallucinations manifesting in a grotesque game show in which his mother and Tommy appear as contestants, for example. This is also one of the ways in which the play deals with the topic of AIDS. I sincerely hope that this production tours, as it would be a shame not to share it with theatres nationwide. I'm glad, however, that Glasgow got the first look of Gareth Nicholls's masterpiece, and that it debuted in perhaps the most appropriate and deserving venue in the country.

Still hungry for artistic fodder, this week I also discovered one of Glasgow's best kept secrets; the Sharmanka Kinetic Theatre. Slightly belying its name, this exhibit is sort of a cross between visual art, puppetry, and mechanical engineering, by artist Eduard Bersudsky. This unique little world is hidden in a single room in Trongate 103; a centre for contemporary arts next to the Tron Theatre. As soon as you enter, there is an eerie feel of nostalgia and melancholy - created in part by lighting and music - reminiscent of scenes from films such as Edward Scissorhands and Hugo.

 
It is largely based on life in the Soviet Union, and heavily features animal and human anatomic imagery (a group of hard-working rats riding a giant mole, for instance). The automaton-type moving sculptures are made from found and recycled objects such as Singer sewing machines, bells, and old bikes. To say much more would be to ruin the performance, but again, the Kinetic Theatre is well worth a look, and captures an important era in a way you won't have seen before.   

Curtain Call: bringing the stage to the page

Life getting in the way of your cultural cravings? Try immersing yourself in literary auditoria and fictional thesps. 

I've found myself favouring the page over the screen recently. Possibly because the nature of working 'unsociable' hours doesn't lend itself particularly well to indulging in Netflix when I get in; I do have a flatmate and neighbours to consider, after all. Perhaps due to this or my tendency to travel long distances, I stumbled upon a means of quenching my thirst for both literature and theatre without having to leave the comfort of my own home (or train/Megabus seat, as appropriate). As most industry professionals will know, one of the paradoxes of working in the theatre (dah-ling) is that one's vocational commitments - although primarily in the theatre - will often prohit one from seeing productions, the love of which activity being more often than not the reason you pursued this particular career in the first place. This was certainly the case when I was a Duty Manager - the curse of forever being in the theatre, but never going to the theatre. The situation hasn't much improved with my now working between the hospitality industry and my own creative pursuits. My financial situation also has a lot to answer for.

Having finished my latest historical, war-ridden paperback, which had been enjoyable, but nevertheless heavier than a hippo with an under-active thyroid, I was craving something a little closer to home. I reached for Curtain Call by Anthony Quinn, the title being a dead giveaway that I might get along particularly well with this one. Curtain Call, set primarily in London's West End, is a combination of murder, betrayal, fame, sexuality, and a country on the brink of war (WWII, to be precise). So, yes, another 'historical' novel, but not quite so close to the bone as Winter in Madrid. What I want to talk about is how well and precisely Quinn manages to replicate the 'world' of the theatre, and why anyone interested in the art should read this book. Two of the central characters are an actress (Nina Land) and a theatre critic (Jimmy Erskine). Whether Quinn has ever tread the boards or worked on either side of the curtain I don't know, but he's certainly done his research.

He describes Nina's dressing room table as "a battlefield of chaos of pots, paints and cratered powders, littered with the used ammo of lipsticks and blunted eyebrow pencils, glittering puddles of jewellery, corpses of cigarettes twisted in ashtrays and the bomb-site tumulus of a discarded feather boa.", an image - putting aside for the moment the clear foreboding war imagery - so accurate, especially pertaining to a performer whom has enjoyed several weeks at the same house, that it must be from first-hand experience. Moreover, the way the characters find analogies for their lives in works of literature - Nina likening a personal situation to the plot of King Lear and Jimmy quoting Macbeth in his head to describe insomnia - "Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleave of care..." - is true to those who are immersed in such works day-to-day and cannot help but see the relevance of recurring themes, etched into their minds, in the banality of modern life.    

Quinn also captures perfectly the feel of a typical West End theatre; the rapid transition between the Get Out of one huge production and the Get In of another: "The Strand Theatre already appeared to have forgotten her recent triumph. All the signs advertising The Second Arrangement had been taken down, including the lights that had picked out her own name below the title. It was like returning to your old home to find it brutally refurbished, unrecognisable, all traces of your occupancy erased.". This rings all too true of my days in a receiving house - no sooner had Wicked (then its Scottish debut and just about the biggest cultural event in Glasgow) ended than some sort of amateur or spoken word production had replaced and eclipsed all evidence of its existence. C'est la vie.

Quinn perfectly observes the very atmosphere of Theatreland on any given evening: "St Martin's lane was aswarm with the theatre crowds just emerging from their evening;s entertainment, the pavements thronged with men carrying the odour of sixpenny cigars and women wearing fake pearls and implausible hats." - this will be a very familiar image for anyone who's been in or around The Theatre Royal Glasgow at any point. he even goes down to as fine a detail as to describe how Jimmy started his career as a modest rep actor, but lacked success due to his less than typically good-looking appearance. Choosing the pen over the stage being the fate, I daresay, of many a frustrated thespian: "The performer in him had not been wholly thwarted; henceforth he would create his own sort of drama from the stalls, to be enjoyed in print the next day.".

Stylistically, Quinn is more Ruth Rendell than Iain Banks, but Curtain Call is just as much a character study as a whodunit. So, if you're stuck for a free evening or the price of a ticket, or the local listings just don't inspire you enough, I'd thoroughly recommend this little gem to tide you over between theatrical visits.

Curtain Call, Anthony Quinn, Penguin Vintage 2015

A play with music - not musical theatre

Cabaret, Sunny Afternoon, and the disturbing wire-crossing of theatre marketing. 

This is a subject matter that's been bothering me of late. Most of my friends and colleagues know that I'm not a fan of musical theatre. Therefore, they wouldn't invite me to a production of, say, Hairspray or Les Mis. However, what's perturbed me is the idea that perhaps performances are being put into this category for the wrong reasons, and are thus dismissed by many as 'musical theatre', when, in fact, they have been misled. Don't get me wrong - there are some exceptions to my 'No Musicals' rule; I do love Rocky Horror and very much enjoyed the stage version of The Producers when I saw it, but that's in much the same way as I hate raisins, but will happily scoff a well-baked fruitcake every now and then.

Anyway, as I was saying, a classic example of false musical accusation is Cabaret. Cabaret is a theatrical adaptation of the author Christopher Isherwood's real experiences in Nazi Germany and his relationship with the performer Sally Bowles. It is an intensely political and historical piece of work, originally directed and choreographed by Bob Fosse. Yes, like all of Fosse's work (e.g. Chicago), it does feature a lot of singing and dancing - but, as aforementioned, one of the main characters, Sally, is a performer by trade. The film depicts Sally and her colleagues performing their nightly routines at the KitKatClub in Berlin; the cabaret movement being prominent in the anti-Nazi community at the time. Sally does not randomly burst into song as a form of exposition or emphasising an emotion at a particular point in a scene. The songs are relevant to the themes of the film (Money, If you Could See Her, etc.), but they are performed naturalistically and characteristically in line with the theatrical style - you even see Brian (Michael York) watching Sally from the audience of the club. Characters do not perform numbers for one another in musical theatre; the number is the performance.

Why do I bring this up? Well, since this idea occurred to me, I've become increasingly more sceptical when I hear the words "Oh, you wouldn't like it - it's a musical". Is it? Or does it just have music in it? One production I've been interested in since I saw it advertised in the West End is Sunny Afternoon, the story of The Kinks. The Kinks are one of my favourite bands of all time, and the script is by one of my theatrical heroes, Joe Penhall (Blue/Orange), but I haven't yet booked tickets for this exact reason. The play is marketed as a musical, but seeing as it's supposedly a biographical account of the band's rise to fame, won't they be performing their songs in context? There's no reason for them to be used as a plot device - only chronological markers of iconic gigs and recordings. I just can't imagine Penhall penning(!) a 'musical' without irony, either.

I could be wrong - this could be Mamma Mia all over again, but the actors are portraying The Kinks themselves, not fabricated characters who can inexplicably only express themselves exclusively through the words and music of a long-disbanded group (a 'Jukebox' musical). Either way, it would be a shame if the industry continues to neglect this particular genre and pass it off as the cheesiest of theatre styles, in the hope that sporadic theatregoers will see that fateful word and instantly buy tickets because they won't have to sit through all that boring dialogue and careful direction without the promise of a recognisable sing-along every five minutes. Thoughts on a postcard.