Listings Mon 9 – Sun 15 Oct 2023
What’s on Edinburgh’s stages this week…
Welcome to a top week of on-stage entertainment, with two big theatrical events at either end of the production values spectrum, the second and final week of Peter Arnott’s latest, and the return of Waiting in the Wings, the benefit for brain tumour research.
First up on the theatre front the Edinburgh University Theatre Company go head-to-head with the National Theatre of Scotland, with two heavyweight productions running Wednesday to Saturday.
The EUTC has Albion, Mike Bartlett’s 2017, Chekhov-inspired social commentary on the state of national identity and patriotism in contemporary Britain, at the Bedlam. Over at the Festival theatre the NTS has Morna Pearson’s adaptation of the Bram Stoker classic with Dracula: Mina’s Reckoning.
A scene from Dracula: Mina’s Reckoning. Pic: Mihaela Bodlovic
The EUTC has a good reputation for such complex and challenging works – the Scottish premiere of Cyprus Avenue was a highlight and their take on Jez Butterworth’s Jerusalem had a furious energy – making a foray into the freezing depths of the Bedlam well worth the extra jumper to see if the current company has equal theatrical chops.
Loss and longing haunt Albion (Book here), which presents the decline of the romanticised ideal of our nation, through the central figure of Audrey, who loses everything in her attempt to restore the past. How much is she willing to sacrifice to honour the dead? Her daughter? Her husband? Her oldest friend? Her son’s partner? The entire village?
The NTS has a rather bigger budget for its Aberdeenshire-set Dracula: Mina’s Reckoning (Book here). Set in a psychiatric hospital in 1897, Pearson places the character of Mina Murray at the centre of the action. Mina seeks refuge at the hospital to escape the horrors she has experienced, retelling her encounters with the most terrifying of beasts: Dracula.
Mina is joined by the patients, an all-women and non-binary ensemble, and together they tell a unique version of Bram Stoker’s legendary tale in a world where immortality and ultimate power is possible, even for women – but with terrible consequences.
Still Waiting in the Wings
Edinburgh’s amateur companies are coming together for Still Waiting in the Wings (Book here), a big fundraiser for Brain Tumour Research for two performances only on Friday evening with a Saturday matinee.
This reprise of Waiting in the Wings (★★★★☆ Wonderful tribute), some ten years later, sees members of Blackout Productions, Forth Children’s Theatre and friends from across Edinburgh and the Lothians, reunite to support the Hogg family who lost their daughter Jenny at 33 years of age.
Jenny was a huge part of many people’s lives in Edinburgh’s youth theatre scene. She studied Stage Management at QMU and spent many years in the stage crews for numerous Edinburgh amateur theatre companies. But it is for her many, many small moments of kindness and advice that she is remembered, particular with members of young companies.
Ruxy Cantir in Pickled Republic. Pic: Andy Catlin.
Talking about Chekhov-inspired state of the nation pieces, Peter Arnott’s Group Portrait in a Summer Landscape is at the Lyceum to Saturday (Book here). “★★★★☆ Philosophical weight“, was our critic Hugh Simpson’s take, of a production that “deals unapologetically with difficult emotional and political themes, eschewing any easy answers or resolutions in a way that could be tricky, but is made palatable by performances of power and nuance”.
paradoxical space
Elsewhere there is plenty on offer, but the eye has to be drawn to Moldova-born, US-trained, and Glasgow-based visual theatre maker Ruxy Cantir’s Pickled Republic at the Roxy (Book here) on Friday and Saturday. A show inspired, Cantir says, “by an absurdly funny event at a funeral in my native Moldova, which was a reminder that we live in a constantly paradoxical space where tragedy and comedy collide.
“The show explores our constant search for meaning and purpose alongside our ridiculous reactions to the reality of death.”
Set as a cabaret in an increasingly mouldy jar, pickled veg characters provide a humorous and outrageous world in which to wrestle with questions the pandemic has raised. What gives meaning and purpose to our lives? And what is our relationship to time passing vis-a-vis (un)fulfilment?
Listings
Click on the name of the show to go to its ticketing site
Assembly Roxy
2 Roxburgh Place, EH8 9SU
Pickled Republic (Scissor Kick Presents Ruxy Cantir)
Fri 13/Sat 14 Oct 2023.
Evenings: 7.30pm. (Upstairs)
A surreal theatrical cabaret for adults with puppetry, mask, and perhaps a poem that promises more vegetables per pound than any current supermarket. So, don’t worry about inflation when there is disintegration. Book here.
Bedlam Theatre
11B Bristo Place, EH1 1EZ.
Albion (EUTC)
Wed 11 – Sat 14 Oct 2023.
Evenings: 7pm; Sat Mat: 2pm
EUTC take on Mike Bartlett’s 2017, Chekhov-inspired state-of-the-nation play, which focuses on a mother mourning her son by returning to her childhood home in the hope of restoring the former glory of its beautiful garden, Albion. Book here.
Church Hill Theatre
33 Morningside Road, EH10 4DR.
Still Waiting in the Wings
Fri 13/Sat 14 October 2023.
Fri: 7.30pm; Sat: 2.30pm
Waiting in the Wings returns almost ten years on, to raise even more money for Brain Tumour Research. Members of Blackout Productions, Forth Children’s Theatre and friends from across Edinburgh and the Lothians, reunite to support the Hogg family who lost their daughter Jenny at 33 years of age. Book here.
Festival Theatre
13/29 Nicolson Street EH8 9FT. Phone booking: 0131 529 6000.
Dracula: Mina’s Reckoning
Wed 11 – Sat 14 Oct 2023
Evenings: 7.30pm, Sat mat: 2.30pm.
Under the buzzing lights of a psychiatric hospital in Aberdeenshire in 1897, Mina Murray recounts her encounters with the most terrifying of beasts: Dracula. A throng of patients listen with bated breath as they are transported to a world where immortality and ultimate power is possible, even for women – but with terrible consequences… Book here.
Lost in Music
Sun 15 Oct 2023
Evening: 7.30pm.
One night at the Disco! Relive some of the greatest songs of all time from artists such as Donna Summer, Gloria Gaynor, Earth, Wind & Fire, Sister Sledge, and Chic. Boasting a sensational live band, incredibly talented cast, and stunning vocals and is sure to have you dancing in the aisles. Book here.
Lyceum Theatre
Grindlay Street EH3 9AX. Phone booking: 0131 248 4848.
Group Portrait in a Summer Landscape
By Peter Arnott
Wed 4 – Sat 14 Oct 2023
Tue – Sat: 7.30pm; Mats Weds & Sat: 2.30pm.
Æ review: ★★★★☆ Philosophical weight
This intense and riveting story is set in a Perthshire country house during the Scottish Independence referendum of 2014. It revolves around retired academic and political heavyweight, George Rennie and his fractured family and former students, coming together for a dramatic reckoning. There are secrets to be exposed. Book here.
Traverse
10 Cambridge Street, EH1 2ED. Phone booking: 0131 228 1404.
Stay (PPP)
Tue 10 – Sat 14 Oct 2023.
Matinees: 1pm. (Traverse 2).
Written by Jonathan O’Neill and Isaac Savage
Æ review: ★★★☆☆ Engaging
Ex-lovers Kit and Rowan stand at the edge of a park pond with an urn and four years of unresolved history between them. After the scattering ceremony flops, something draws both Kit and Rowan to stay…but can death rekindle the past? A new two-hander musical by exploring love, grief and peculiar park life. Book here.
More Pages (Page2Stage)
Tue 10 Oct 2023.
Evening: 8pm. (Traverse 2).
The Scaff by Graeme Smith and Stephen Christopher
There’s rules to football and rules to life. Break them and you suffer the consequences. Join Frankie, Liam and Jamie as they plan the worst tackle in football history.
Lost Girls / At Bus Stops by Róisín Sheridan Bryson
A Queer love story and a love letter to Edinburgh during the Festivals. On a single night out at the Fringe, Jess and Iona wander the city looking for the best show, the finest view, the perfect moment to tell each other how they really feel.
Performed as a double-bill Work-in-Progress. Book here.
ENDS
