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Socialist Review Index (1993–1996) | Socialist Review 178 Contents
From Socialist Review, No. 178, September 1994.
Copyright © Socialist Review.
Copied with thanks from the Socialist Review Archive.
Marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
We review three new plays currently showing at the Edinburgh Festival
A kidnapped media tycoon, a pack of tabloid newshounds, a gun-toting priest and John Major – Abducting Diana is about par for the course for Dario Fo, author of the classic political farces, Accidental Death of an Anarchist and Can’t Pay, Won’t Pay.
First performed in Italy in 1987, but only receiving its British premiere at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe, this is yet another prophetic Fo satire. Abducting Diana is one in the eye for new Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi in particular, and for the ruling class in general.
A tale of bourgeois corruption, sleaze and backstabbing, the play is as adaptable to the current Tory crisis in Britain as Can’t Pay, Won’t Pay proved to be to the campaign against the poll tax. It is therefore a great disappointment that this production never really comes off. Farce is a very exact art, and the necessary pace, timing and punch are lacking – and the occasional silly running around routine never really compensates. Susan Penhaligon is brilliant as the powerful right wing media mogul (Julie Burchill would be quite jealous) and as her convincing double, but she is largely let down by the supporting cast.
Twilight Shift by Jackie Kay, on the other hand, is absolutely unmissable. Although Scottish touring company 7:84 – their name comes from the calculation made in the 1960s that 7 percent of Britain’s population owned 84 percent of the wealth – are renowned for dealing with contemporary political issues, this is the first time they’ve worked with primarily gay material.
It’s the story of gay love in a small, tight-knit Scottish mining community. Alexander, a miner, is having a love affair with Joe, the local barber and himself a miner’s son, but Alexander is married with a son and Joe’s grandmother is holding a secret which could change all their lives.
The play is a wonderful sensitive examination of the guilt, fear and secrecy which gay love so often carries within working class communities. This is particularly acute in a relatively isolated mining town which, in addition to having experienced a pit disaster and the Great Strike of 1984–85, has to deal with the contradictions thrown up by the macho culture of the men and the physical closeness and camaraderie of the all male working environment.
There are no heroes and no villains here. There is a deep understanding of how homophobia is detrimental not only to gay people but to the whole of society, and of the furtiveness, self denial and rejection which so often damages so many people.
Jackie Kay paints on a wide canvas, and so Twilight Shift breaks down the theatrical stereotypes of both gay men and miners.
In this play we have a wonderful rarity – an intense, genuine, moving portrayal of what it is to be working class and gay in our society.
Bitch! Dyke! Faghag! Whore! is another must see. Don’t be put off by the title, this show is not an exercise in professional political correctness. Subtitled the Penny Arcade Sex and Censorship Show this is accessible theatre at its best. The show was written in response to the censorship ushered in by right wing Senator Jesse Helms in the US a few years ago and its continued international success is a tribute to its effectiveness.
Essentially it is a one woman show. Susana Ventura, or Penny Arcade, is wonderful in the myriad of roles.
The accessibility of the show stems from Penny Arcade’s outlook, which she terms her ‘working class sensibility’. She says, ‘the same thing that makes people violent and racist makes them homophobic. This horrible fear that comes from the horrible class system that we live in.’
Penny Arcade want us to ‘look at where the strings go up from the marionette’ and in seeing the oppressive hand of capitalism she has created a truly liberated and uplifting piece of theatre.
Abducting Diana is at the Pleasance, Edinburgh, until September 3. Twilight Shift and Bitch! Dyke! Faghag! Whore! are both at the Assembly Rooms, Edinburgh, until September 3. Watch out for them elsewhere in the coming months
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