Published in The Guardian
Heaven
Òran Mór, Glasgow
3 out of 5
I had assumed Simon Stephens would have reworked his short two-hander since the summer when the Traverse gave it a breakfast reading on the Edinburgh fringe. But here it is in a fuller but still bare-bones production for A Play, a Pie and a Pint, the lunchtime theatre season, with the same oddball charm and the same feeling that its deeper meaning is just out of grasp.
On balance, this is a good thing, not least because Heaven's combination of character comedy, plot revelations and philosophical reflection suit the laid-back lunchtime format. Give or take the odd fudged line, Dominic Hill's production makes a lively, if elliptical start to a five-play run of Traverse co-productions.
The scene is a departure lounge where two strangers awaiting a flight to Turin fall into a dispute over some litter. Kyle (Sean Scanlan), a 67-year-old former pianist is just the sort of busybody the younger Sean (Robert Jack) would sooner avoid as he makes a break for freedom from his job in a North Berwick hotel.
What starts as an amusingly pedantic struggle moves into less certain territory. Behind Kyle's fuddy-duddy appearance lies a bit of a radical – and perhaps something of the deus ex machina – although not radical enough to embrace Sean's decision to escape his idyllic family life. In place of a predictable kind of heaven, the father of two has opted for the thrill of the unknown.
The unsettling comedy finds a resolution of sorts in Kyle's incongruous rendition of Heaven, the trippy ode to celestial emptiness by Talking Heads. Whether from a beauty spot or an airport, Sean is escaping from a "place where nothing ever happens", like an artist searching for life whatever the personal cost.
Until Saturday. Box office: 0844 477 1000. Then at Traverse, Edinburgh (0131-228 1404), 2-6 March.
© Mark Fisher 2010
Heaven
Òran Mór, Glasgow
3 out of 5
I had assumed Simon Stephens would have reworked his short two-hander since the summer when the Traverse gave it a breakfast reading on the Edinburgh fringe. But here it is in a fuller but still bare-bones production for A Play, a Pie and a Pint, the lunchtime theatre season, with the same oddball charm and the same feeling that its deeper meaning is just out of grasp.
On balance, this is a good thing, not least because Heaven's combination of character comedy, plot revelations and philosophical reflection suit the laid-back lunchtime format. Give or take the odd fudged line, Dominic Hill's production makes a lively, if elliptical start to a five-play run of Traverse co-productions.
The scene is a departure lounge where two strangers awaiting a flight to Turin fall into a dispute over some litter. Kyle (Sean Scanlan), a 67-year-old former pianist is just the sort of busybody the younger Sean (Robert Jack) would sooner avoid as he makes a break for freedom from his job in a North Berwick hotel.
What starts as an amusingly pedantic struggle moves into less certain territory. Behind Kyle's fuddy-duddy appearance lies a bit of a radical – and perhaps something of the deus ex machina – although not radical enough to embrace Sean's decision to escape his idyllic family life. In place of a predictable kind of heaven, the father of two has opted for the thrill of the unknown.
The unsettling comedy finds a resolution of sorts in Kyle's incongruous rendition of Heaven, the trippy ode to celestial emptiness by Talking Heads. Whether from a beauty spot or an airport, Sean is escaping from a "place where nothing ever happens", like an artist searching for life whatever the personal cost.
Until Saturday. Box office: 0844 477 1000. Then at Traverse, Edinburgh (0131-228 1404), 2-6 March.
© Mark Fisher 2010
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