Camden Fringe 2019 Archives - Page 5 of 16

Puttana

Etcetera Theatre

Reviewed – 19th August 2019

★★★

“Punchy and filled with promise, it’s a well-crafted hour of storytelling”

How judgemental are we of ourselves and others? Does your sex life define you? How easy is it to love your own body? ‘Puttana’, a one-man-show with a short run at this year’s Camden Fringe, tackles these questions head on. Italian for bitch, whore, or slut, “puttana” is a wonderfully expressive word. As Oskar Hartman explores though, it’s a slander, a label that attacks beneath the surface and can have lasting implications.

Hartman begins his performance lying on a bare, blow-up mattress, woken up by the sound of his phone. Messages from Grindr. His usual hook-up conversations are drilled, and lead on a larger meditation of his own life and sexual experiences. This is, as advertised, a bare-knuckle confessional monologue. Hartman’s raunchy and, at times, harrowing sexual history uncovers the highs and lows of gay male hook-up culture. The piece swings between self-indulgence and comedic insight, with the story never quite taking off, or leading anywhere profound.

This boldly entertaining monologue packs a punch, but Oskar’s biggest challenge is winning over his audience. Some more time getting to know us, might make us want to get to know him. Considerably well-travelled, Hartman takes us to a sex club in Berlin, Starbucks in New York, a sexual health clinic in Helsinki and an exclusive club in Milan. His all-too-brief transformation in Luca the Doorman provides a winning moment of comedy, as he selects which members of the audience are allowed into his club: “Tu, si. Tu, no.” Hartman embodies different characters nicely – I only wish we’d seen more.

Director and dramaturg Jonna Wikström could certainly trim some of the fat from this production. Although Oskar is embroiled in club culture, the benefits of seeing one man raving on stage for more than a few seconds are questionable. That said, the combination of flashing lights and well-structured storytelling makes the Berlin sex club scene a highlight of the show. Hartman’s nervy performance gets more and more relaxed as the show goes on. He asks audience members lots of questions – does he want them to answer?

For those with a taste for confessional monologues, this is a must-see at the Camden Fringe. The piece at once criticises the superficiality of hook-up culture, whilst of course seeming to advocate it. On the one hand, its message is that we ought to stop judging people for their sexual exploits. On the other, it presents gay characters defined only by what they do in (or not, as the case may be) the bedroom. However, hopefully Hartman and friends will find other occasions to bring this piece back beyond its two-day run. Punchy and filled with promise, it’s a well-crafted hour of storytelling. I only wish I cared about Oskar more to make his final realisation as impactful as it wants to be.

Reviewed by Joseph Prestwich

Puttana

Etcetera Theatre until 20th August as part of Camden Fringe 2019

Previously reviewed at this venue:

Jailbirds | ★★ | December 2018

The Very Well-Fed Caterpillar | ★★★★ | December 2018

Bricks of the Wall | ★ | January 2019

Past Perfect | ★★★★ | July 2019

The Parentheticals: Improdyssey | ★★★★ | August 2019

Women On The Edge | ★★★ | August 2019

Click here to see more of our latest reviews on thespyinthestalls.com

★★★★★

“brilliant, high octane, physical theatre at its absolute best”

The Camden Fringe has delivered a smorgasbord of delights this year and as it enters its final week, plenty more shows are still on offer.

Rendered Retina bring us the award winning Form, a comedy based around the mundane goings of three workers in a typical office. Not necessarily a plot line to set the pulse racing, but this is all delivered through the medium of mime, clowning and ingeniously clever object manipulation.

The set consists of an office desk dressed with the usual accessories and fourteen boxes filled with scrunched up balls of paper.

Some plays have a thousand lines of dialogue and yet nothing of substance is said. Here, not a single word is spoken and yet we are made to laugh and question how our working routine dominates our lives. The three performers (Tom Mangan, Alex Mangan and Jordan Choi) are all equally skilled. The ongoing choreography is lightning fast and yet synchronised to the split second. Movement is exaggerated, sharp and accompanied by terrific facial expression. The original music score complemented each of the scenes cleverly and heightened the story telling that the actors were so wittily putting across.

Scene changes can often be so clunky and yet no black outs and scraping of furniture here, instead locations changed before our eyes. Often they were so subtle and slickly carried out, that you almost didn’t notice it happening right in front of you. There we were, transformed to an operating theatre, a prison cell or an underwater setting. Props used in these scenes were genius, again they suddenly appeared out of nowhere, were imaginative and yet fitted the setting perfectly. We were promised twenty thousand balls of screwed up paper and that’s what we got. Inventively used in a variety of scenes, the one single ball of red paper caught the eye like a laser and again moved around the stage with a deft slightness of hand. At the end of the show, the stage was littered with these paper balls and yet this company is so accomplished, you feel that each and every one probably ended up no more than inch from where it should have been.

This is brilliant, high octane, physical theatre at its absolute best. An original concept and put together in a humorous, thought provoking, imaginative way by an immensely talented team. As the dust settles and I return to my mundane desk job tomorrow, whenever I have cause to use my desk stapler, I think a fond smile will creep across my face.

Reviewed by Chris White

Photography by Lindsay Oliver

Etcetera Theatre

Reviewed – 19th August 2019

★★★

“Punchy and filled with promise, it’s a well-crafted hour of storytelling”

Reviewed by Joseph Prestwich

Puttana

Etcetera Theatre until 20th August as part of Camden Fringe 2019

Previously reviewed at this venue:

Camden People’s Theatre

Reviewed – 19th August 2019

★★★★★

“brilliant, high octane, physical theatre at its absolute best”

The Camden Fringe has delivered a smorgasbord of delights this year and as it enters its final week, plenty more shows are still on offer.

Rendered Retina bring us the award winning Form, a comedy based around the mundane goings of three workers in a typical office. Not necessarily a plot line to set the pulse racing, but this is all delivered through the medium of mime, clowning and ingeniously clever object manipulation.

The set consists of an office desk dressed with the usual accessories and fourteen boxes filled with scrunched up balls of paper.

Reviewed by Chris White

Photography by Lindsay Oliver

Form

Camden People’s Theatre until 21st August as part of Camden Fringe 2019

Last ten shows reviewed at this venue: