August 2007 Archives
EDINBURGH FRINGE FESTIVAL 2007 REVIEW
Choon-Hyang: True Love
Theater Seoul, Korea (www.smusical.com)
C Venue 34, Chambers Street
August 10th-27th 11:30hrs Tickets: £7.50-£9.50 (Concessions £6.50 -
£8.50; Children £4.50-£6.50)
CHOON-HYANG is an old Korean folk tale, passed down the centuries through an oral tradition. It tells the story of a noble young lady Choon-Hyang who falls in love with a young nobleman, Mong-Ryong. They're helped in getting together by her maid and his manservant who also develop feelings for one another.
Mong-Ryong has to leave the area with his father and exchanges love tokens with Choon-Hyang. In his absence a cruel local ruler locks her up because she refuses to break her pledge of love for Mong-Ryong and marry him.
That's the basic story but it scarcely does credit to this wonderfully told enchanting production. The traditional Korean music and dance add to the story. These Korean children – acting in English, their second language – throw themselves totally into the story. There's not a bum note, not a fault in this heartwarming show. The audience at the show I attended jumped to their feet in enthusiastic applause and many queued up to buy programmes and CDs of the musical soundtrack at the end.
It's a real feel-good happy production. The lovely girl gets her man and the evil plotter gets his comeuppance. It's cheerful and endearing and a real antidote to some of the more depressing productions on at the Fringe. This is the second year in succession that Choon-Hyang has come to the Fringe and I'm not surprised. If it was on at the London West End it could run for years. Don't miss it.
EDINBURGH FRINGE FESTIVAL 2007 REVIEW
AINE...
(tigone)
HWS Rembick Project
Written and directed by Adam Howard
Assisted by Jamey Gallagher
Assistant Produced by Nora Tillman
August 3rd, 5th, 9th, 13th 16th at 18:15 hrs
Rocket at Demarco Roxy Art Venue 115
ADAM HOWARD'S adaptation of Sophocles' classical Greek drama to troubles-torn Belfast in the Seventies is a telling reminder of the horrors from which we have only recently escaped.
Set in a dingy drinking club, Charlie is the local IRA hard man. He sits drinking and playing cards all day, laying down the law – his law – to the locals. Charlie is not a man to be crossed. He had a vicious temper, so his fearful followers are wary of telling him what they think he doesn't want to hear. If he is told bad news, he tends to react violently.The messenger must be paid by the Brits or the Huns.
Charlie's family seems cursed. Dreadful things have happened at the hands of
the British and the loyalists. Charlie
has become an embittered and paranoid bullyboy.
The cause is no longer 'The Cause' but his own personal power and
status.
Charlie's bright nephew, Padraic, has gone
off to university in Oxford. Despite a warning from his brother to keep up his
guard and his identity he meets Deryn – an English Protestant. They fall in love and Padraic decides to turn
– to marry Deryn and convert to her faith - much to the chagrin of Padraic's
brother and other family members.
Charlie is so furious he sets up an operation that kills Deryn. In hs
attempt to rescue her, Padraic and then his brother fall dead at the hands of
snipers.
Charlie forbids anyone to touch the
traitor's body on pain of death. His niece Aine defies him against the earnest
pleadings of her sister Isleen. Aine is a real spitfire. She knows what she has
to do and will follow it through whatever the personal consequences. Things are
not going to get any better for this cursed family...
The Californian youngsters who staged this
play have really captured the essence of life in the closed-in back streets of
Belfast at the height of the troubles. Some of the accents are more soft Cork
than guttural Belfast but that's a minor niggle. This production sweats out
passion, love and hate, devotion and defiance with just a lightening of humour
around the edges. You can't fail to be moved by it.
August 16th will see the thirtieth anniversary of The King’s untimely death at the age of 42. Most people of a certain age remember where they were when they heard that Elvis had died. I was at a trade union meeting in Cork. I had phoned home to let my mother know I had arrived safely. She told me the shocking news. For this reason I always associate that city with Elvis Presley. My younger sister was devastated. We were big Elvis fans in our house!
Elvis started out as an early performer of rockabilly: a strong fusion of country and rhythm and blues with a strong back beat. In 1953 he went into the Memphis office of Sun Records where he paid $3.98 to record the first of two double-sided 'demo' acetates - "My Happiness" and "That's When Your Heartaches Begin” as a present for his mother. A recording demo of 'That’s All Right, Mama' was played on a local radio station to great acclaim. A week later, Sun received some 6000 advance orders for the disc.
In 1956, he hit the big time. 'Heartbreak Hotel' came out in Jauary and reached Number One in the charts by April, selling over a million copies. The first album came out in March, mainly covering country songs.
In June he performed "Hound Dog" while shaking his legs with a series of hip thrusts in time to the beat. These "gyrations" created a storm of controversy: the next day's press used such words as "vulgar" and "obscene". Elvis replied: "Rock and roll music, if you like it, and you feel it, you can't help but move to it. That's what happens to me. I have to move around. I can't stand still. I've tried it, and I can't do it". In response the Ed Sullivan Show censored his "gyrations": he was shown only above the waist
In November his first film Love Me Tender was released. It was panned by the critics, but did well at the box office. His record sales went stellar throughout the late 1950s, with hits like "All Shook Up", "(Let me Be Your) Teddy Bear" and "I Need Your Love Tonight". Jailhouse Rock, Loving You (both 1957) and King Creole (1958) were released and are regarded as the best of his early films.
Most of the films, though were pretty dreadful formulaic affairs with so-so songs. Gradually, Elvis began to lose his cool status. By the late sixties only diehard fans were buying his records. He realised something had to be done to halt the decline, hence an NBC TV show, later known as the '68 Comeback Special, aired December 3, 1968 This included extracts from live sessions that saw him clad in black leather and performing in an uninhibited style, reminiscent of his rock and roll days. Elvis was back!
1969 saw Presley making record-breaking appearances in Las Vegas. He later toured across the U.S. and had a stream of sold-out shows, performing in more than a thousand concerts between 1969 to 1977 although his music was by then out of step with the times. One of the best examples of an Elvis tour is the electrifying MGM documentary, Elvis: That’s The Way It Is released at the end of 1970.
After his divorce in 1973, Elvis became increasingly isolated and overweight, with prescription drugs and a faddy diet taking their toll on his health, mood and his stage act. Towards the end he struggled through every show. On August 16th 1977 he was found on the floor of his bathroom by his fiancée, Ginger Alden. According to the medical investigator, he had "stumbled or crawled several feet before he died.
According to Leonard Bernstein, "Elvis is the greatest cultural force in the twentieth century. He introduced the beat to everything, music, language, clothes, it's a whole new social revolution... the 60's comes from it.” I couldn’t agree more. The King is dead but the best of his music lives on forever!
