Edinburgh 2002

Fringe

Wreck the Airline Barrier
The Smirnoff Underbelly

James Panton

Double Edge Drama and the Oxford University Drama Society have brought anti-capitalism to the Edinburgh Festival.

You might expect the combination of Oxford Students and anti-capitalism to be the most annoying thing you could find at the Festival. But it isn't.

Written by Adriano Shapiro and first performed by The Riot Group at the Festival in 1999, when it won a Fringe First, this OUDS interpretation is of an equally high standard. According to the blurb, this piece 'unleashes the horror behind the gleaming smile of capitalism'. It challenges the meaningless lives, the egotism and narcissism of the individuals in a corporate and consumer driven world. Remarkably, it does this with a wit and insight that the anti-capitalists themselves could learn from.

The players are in the middle of the audience in a bleak space with only a few plastic chairs for props. With very physical performances, we are taken through a few hours in the lives of characters abstracted from contemporary society as they move from home to bus to a plane flight which, so the metaphor goes, is soon going to come crashing out of the skies, as the players on board watch their lives crash down around them.

Though it sounds simple, the direction, by Simon Woods, is superb. The four actors, National Student Drama Festival 2002 prizewinners and graduates of the National Youth Theatre, are almost faultless, giving exhaustingly physical performances. The dialogue is tight, at times disturbing and insightful, and often funny. This is a difficult and risky piece of theatre whose performance and production is both exhilirating and disturbing.

Until 25 August: 16.40 (1hr 5mins)

Wreck the Airline Barrier has been pencilled in for discussion at the Institute of Ideas' Round Table Rumbles event on Tuesday 13 August, when the theme is 9/11: Uncertain Future.