Well for a change I thought I'd type up a bit about some theatre I've been to see recently in Glasgow as I seen two plays over the weekend (well technically three).
Last night I went to see a double bill of the theatre group Rekindle Theatre who put on two plays My Child and One Good Beating at The Arches in glasgow. The first play My Child featured one or two familiar faces (well one really) one of which was one of my former acting tutors John Gilmour who played the lead part of a father who is accussed of hurting his son, while he also has to contend with his incontinent aging mother in law and his bitter ex-wife, but then he runs off with his estranged son in a desparate attempt to get to know him better. The overall tone of My Child was pretty bleak but it did feature some excellent performances from the cast, also the liberal use of Mogwai on the soundtrack added to the mood of the piece. I also quite liked the minimal use of props in the play, the sparse space in the Arches made it quite effective to the kind of despairing tone of the play. Perhaps overall the play was a bit too bleak, but it did feature some moments of humour too, my favourite bit was where one of the girls (playing a foreigner) in the play asks John "does this train go to Miln-gavvyy??".
The play which featured my fellow acting thesp Scott (founder of Rekindle) One Good Beating had quite a different change in tone, as it was more humorous although at the core it was still a very dramatic piece. One good beating focussed on a bitter cynical father who's two children have locked him in their garden tool shed. The father berates his weak son (Scott) although he has a strange fondness for his daughter as he sees himself in here, as she is feisty and strong, but they very much have a love-hate relationship (with more hate). It was a very entertaining and funny play and the cast were all excellent, particularly good was the actor who played the father, he brought out alot of bitter and bullying humour at the same time. The end of the play was also hilarious with the daughter promising to let the dad out of the garden shed by giving him her permission and she waits poised with a shovel in her hands to give him his good beating!
So onto tonight's theatre at the Ramshorn theatre, where Rona Munro's play Bold Girls was on its final night. Again it was a really entertaining and enjoyable play, which focussed around the lives of two sisters and their mother during the troubled times in Belfast in the year 1990. Again the performances were all great, and of course my acting buddie the lovely Gillean Young was great in a part that was tailor made for her as she played one of the feisty sisters Cassie (loved her dancing, quite funny!), and also Amy Williamson who was terrific as her older sister Marie. The actress playing the mother Nora was also very funny as she came out with plenty of funny stories from her olden days. And Jennifer Joyes was also quite creepy and mysterious as the young Deirdre. It was a fine production with a good set and a nifty soundtrack (being of course an Irish play they couldn't go without Shane McGowan's Fairy Tale of New York could they??! :-)). And of course a lot of credit goes to the actresses who all had perfect northern Irish accents, which has always been a really tough accent for me to try to do, its one that I could never do and keep it consistent, it would fall into Swahili or something similar!
But it was good to see another show at the Ramshorn, which unfortunately is falling foul to the budget cuts at the hands of Strathclyde Uni who want to push the arts out the door so they can save money and concentrate on making the university a "centre of business and technical excellence" as they have put it in the past. This unfortunately of course means that the Ramshorn will close in July, as of course in small part this is also due to the expense of maintaining of the building too. But hopefully the STG can try and find another venue where they can continue to put on their shows, it would be a great shame to see many talented performers without a place to be on stage, so I hope something will work out for them. Its a great shame that the arts and culture always seems to suffer at the hands of organisations and finance, as quite often the case is the people behind all this are more concerned about expenditure, its clearly a case of "know the price of everything and the value of nothing!".
And well that's all for now.
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