UTTERLY BEGUILING HEAD SPINNER |
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) CONSTANTINOPLE by Barnie Duncan with Trygve Wakenshaw Theatre Beating at The Basement, Lower Greys Ave, Auckland From 2 Mar 2011 to 4 Mar 2011 [1hr] Reviewed by Lillian Richards, 5 Mar 2011 |
Constantinople is part history lesson, part vision of lunacy. Barnie Duncan's pseudo one man show (there are a couple of extra actors in togas offering harmonizing back up vocals and the odd conversation) is an amusing and off-kilter look at one of the most famous cities in the history of man.
The way Duncan sweetly skids over the facts pertaining to Constantinople is delightful and his delivery is amusingly reverential when he dotes on Constantinople being a “city of people living in dwellings.” Switching from one character to another, all expressions of both the real and the imaginary, and the boarder where the two meet, the audience watches their seemingly unrelated (by normal means) stories unfold.
The overall effect is charming and utterly beguiling. What just happened? A fringe festival event is what – a moment in time so left-of-centre it questions all concepts of theatre from linear devices to plot to timing and pace. But you know what? That's what's so good about The Fringe Festival, it offers a space for the strange. It opens a door to a whole other universe, where theatre expands to do all the things it was told it couldn't do. Sometimes the failures are bigger than the successes but the point is in the expansion.
Constantinople breaks rules, shares knowledge, has fun and spins your head a little. Things could be worse.
[Apologies that illness has caused this review to be delayed - ed.]
The way Duncan sweetly skids over the facts pertaining to Constantinople is delightful and his delivery is amusingly reverential when he dotes on Constantinople being a “city of people living in dwellings.” Switching from one character to another, all expressions of both the real and the imaginary, and the boarder where the two meet, the audience watches their seemingly unrelated (by normal means) stories unfold.
The overall effect is charming and utterly beguiling. What just happened? A fringe festival event is what – a moment in time so left-of-centre it questions all concepts of theatre from linear devices to plot to timing and pace. But you know what? That's what's so good about The Fringe Festival, it offers a space for the strange. It opens a door to a whole other universe, where theatre expands to do all the things it was told it couldn't do. Sometimes the failures are bigger than the successes but the point is in the expansion.
Constantinople breaks rules, shares knowledge, has fun and spins your head a little. Things could be worse.
[Apologies that illness has caused this review to be delayed - ed.]
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This review kindly supported by The James Wallace Arts Trust http://www.wallaceartstrust.org.nz/
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Rosabel Tan (Theatre Scenes - Auckland Theatre Blog);
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