Fringe theatre reviews: Campitalism | The Problem | Handle With Care | Women of Will | Meet Mayor Max | chameleon; mirage

THEATRE

Campitalism ★★★★

Pleasance Courtyard (Venue 33) until 31 August

The Problem ★★★

Assembly @ St. Andrew Square (Venue 172) until 30 August

SUBTITLED “three gays try to fix the economy”, Boy Theatre’s Campitalism - co-produced with the Curve, Leicester, and the Pleasance - is a rip-roaring protest show about the current state of capitalism, stuffed into a Pleasance space far too small for the scale of its ideas, or the sheer theatrical energy of its three performers.

Circling around a desk placed centre-stage, the show’s three creator-performers - Maria Telnikoff, Kit Miles and Cherry Eckel - appear dressed in business shirts, ties and jackets but with short trousers, and take on the roles of three buffoonish business leaders called Brian, all entirely dedicated to making the social, moral and environmental idiocies of 21st century capitalism seem absolutely normal, natural and unavoidable.

The task, of course, is completely beyond them; and meanwhile, on screen, compliant politicians from our current galaxy of third-rate leaders appear mouthing the same platitudes or aping the same ugly attitudes, in clips so hilarious well put together that they have the audience roaring with laughter and recognition.

In between the rowdy antics of the three Brians, meanwhile, the three occasionally revert, in moments of immense stillness, to their own life-stories, shaped by a system where, even as people of relative privilege, they can no longer earn enough to buy a house, or aspire to build and support a family. The show is inconclusive, and so loud and pacey in the Brian scenes that it’s sometimes impossible to follow. Yet its energy, anger, and wit, and its flat refusal to accept the nonsensical as somehow inevitable, is wholly admirable; and promises a great future for this bold company, appearing as part of the Pleasance’s excellent Edinburgh National Partnership programme.

At Assembly’s temporary home in St, Andrew Square, meanwhile, Fringe veteran and multiple award winner, the New York writer Brian Parks, presents his latest play The Problem, also featuring three men in suits.

Produced by Twilight Theatre, The Problem imagines a situation in which three middle-aged corporate types - Manning, Slater, and Wilson - are congratulating themselves on closing a particularly satisfying deal, and surveying the view from their high-rise New York office, when they suddenly realise that there is a problem - one that has to be solved, or their careers will end in ignominy, or worse.

Like all Parks’s plays, The Problem boasts a script in love with language and its little quirks, fast-moving, smart, and slightly mysterious in its deliberate abstraction from what the problem actually is.

The idea of this unnamed archetype of a problem, though, unleashes three thoroughly enjoyable performances from Matthew Boston, Brian Dykstra and Patrick Frederic, as they perpetually switch roles between problem-solver and solution-crusher, the one suspected of betrayal, and the one betrayed. And if the show is tells us nothing we didn’t already know about the morality and attitudes of our capitalist lords of the universe and their management underlings, it still delivers its story in style; and with that indispensable New York quickness and flair. Joyce McMillan

THEATRE

Handle With Care ★★★

ZOO Southside (Southside) until 30 August

Ontroerend Goed are no strangers to pushing the bounds of traditional theatre, but their latest Fringe performance Handle With Care takes audience participation to a whole new level. For one thing, there is very little performance: there are no actors waiting in the wings, no technicians in the room, no set in sight. There is just the audience, and in the middle of the stage a small box filled with instructions and messages that turns said audience not just into participants, but into an entire theatre company.

On a cerebral level, Handle With Care is concerned with ideas of agency, linearity and collaboration, and how the framework of traditional theatre influences our ideas around action and passivity – both on stage and elsewhere. On a less cerebral level, it is an exercise in mayhem. A participant tries to open the first letter. “Rip it,” someone else joyfully yells. One scene, appropriately titled Six Minutes of Chaos, features everyone on stage bumping into each other while trying to fulfil assigned tasks. And although the idea as a whole could have done with a bit more of a robust dramaturgy, there is nevertheless something very heart-warming about watching the world’s most good-natured group project unfold. Anahit Behrooz

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THEATRE

Women of Will ★★★

Summerhall (Venue 26) until 31 August

In an actual bar in Summerhall's library gallery, young barmaid Ava (Ella Loudon) is locking up for the night when regular Jack (Nigel Gore) pops back for something he's forgotten. They get chatting and he spots what she's reading: The Taming of the Shrew. She's an aspiring young actor, and she's reading Katherina for an audition. It turns out Jack's an actor too, at the other end of his career, with caring responsibilities which may soon force him to quit pursuing work.

They get talking and share their different generational views and experiences, particularly around their interpretations of Shakespeare’s female characters. Feminist Ava doesn’t want to conform to the classic roles as defined by the patriarchy, but Jack, with plenty of experience of playing Shakespeare, tries to convince her he was ahead of his time in portraying women; or at least, that he had something important to say about the female experience.

Directed by Michael Sexton and written by Siofra Dromgoole with credited inspiration from Tina Packer’s non-fiction book of the same name, Women of Will’s characters are relatable and well portrayed, each with their own believable compulsion towards being on the stage. Yet they feel almost secondary to the thoughtful theatrical discussion, and just part of a framework in which two great Shakespearean actors in Loudon and Gore can let loose beautifully with extended scenes from the plays being discussed. David Pollock

THEATRE

Meet Mayor Max ★★★

Pleasance Courtyard (Venue 33) until 31 August

THE SENSE of a lost generation vulnerable to recruitment to all kids of cults is a recurrent theme on this year’s Fringe. In Meet Mayor Max, co-produced with Theatre Royal Plymouth and the Pleasance, English theatre maker Alex Robins - plagued with mysterious neural pain down half of his body - finds that his quest for meaning and healing takes him to Idyllwild, a small town in the high mountains of Southern California famous for its relaxed way of life; and also for the fact that as an unincorporated town, it is free to keep electing a series of golden labradors called Max - three, so far - as the town mayor.

There is undoubtedly an element of the cultish in the enthusiasm for Mayor Max and his family felt by Alex Robins; and he tells his story in an attractive, well-shaped show that nonetheless comes across more as a genial lecture, heavily dependent on illustration with projected photographs of Alex’s visits, than as a full theatrical performance.

In the end, Alex seems to prefer the gentle and healing company of Max, and the link he offers to a different and more respectful relationship with the animal world, to other more rigorous forms of cult belief, including the California-based faith of Scientology. There is a sense, though, that his quest continues; for the peace of mind and body that Max embodies so perfectly, without any apparent effort at all. Joyce McMillan

THEATRE

chameleon; mirage ★

Muse at Braw Venues @ Hill Street (Venue 41) until 30 August

Being half-Turkish, half-English – or, as Lucy Idil Jordan says – “whole Turkish, whole English” and raised in Indonesia, comes with pressures both internal and external. In chameleon; mirage Jordan takes us through the adaptations required to navigate life as a third-culture kid.

Jordan delivers an uncertain performance, taking cues from a tablet she carries that often gets in her way. She is most engaging in her movement sequences and song – elements the show would benefit from developing further. Ultimately, though, she seems chronically unsure, offering a potentially compelling story but leaning on cliches about identity and belonging rather than drawing out the particulars of her experience. Mika Morava

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