@ Scottish Storytelling Centre, Edinburgh, on Tue 20 Oct 2015
Opening with a disastrous dance sequence, this ridiculous two hour plus production, with added post-discussion is certainly a night worth forgetting. An international cast of fifteen mostly non-actors struggle with the nonsensical dialogue and preposterous storyline of this self-indulgent, pretentious mess, all taken onboard by director, writer, actor and choreographer Edgar Rodriguez.
The aforementioned opening sets the scene, as Rodriguez takes the stage like a Spanish version of David Brent from The Office, enthusiastically bouncing around the stage as the rest try to keep up with him. We then delve into the story of a cross generational gay relationship as our lead characters, Julian (Gordon Houston) and Stephan (Chris Pearson) introduce their relationship to their friends. Later we meet Julian’s family, and his cat. Who can talk.
Actually, the talking cat is the most fun part of the production, with Alexander G. Romanitan giving a zesty performance that hints at things that could have been. Unfortunately, the cat gets lost in the mix as the story goes forth to reveal that Julian is actually an incarnation of a previous lover of Stephan’s, having travelled from the ‘70s in a magical diamond. Or something like that. It’s a little unclear as to what is actually going on storywise, and the cast are uniformly quite awful, mostly overacting to a headache-inducing degree.
Whilst there is the potential here for an interesting look into the more psychological aspects of a cross generational relationship and its effect on friendships, it gets completely lost in a hodge-podge of magical nonsense. Scenes go on forever, there’s the occasional daft dance and movement sequence wedged in and some pointless time engulfing musical numbers. Once the fifteen cast members took to the stage for their bow it was quite horrifying to realise that an awkward post-show discussion was to follow and there was no escape for anyone who would rather be anywhere but there. It’s highly unlikely that this self-indulgent mess of a show will appear anywhere else again, but if it does, avoid like the plague.
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