Fringe: The Story of the Fallen Hero In Guandaline

EDINBURGH FESTIVAL

Mike Higgins

Wednesday 13 August 1997

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The Story of the Fallen Hero

In Guandaline Sagliocco's self-consciously theatrical take on the myth of Jason and the Golden Fleece, a plucky but naive Olympian servant girl, Nanny, is struck with compassion as her mistresses toy with the young hero's destiny.

As well as her mischievous, humane Nanny, Sagliocco employs the most precise of gestures to conjure up a gallery of pleasingly fallible Olympian women - the bimbo-ish Aphrodite, the butch Athena and a Joan Crawfordesque Hera with an Eartha Kitt growl - which complements the swathes of Mediterranean texture and light to produce a series of vivid tableaux.

Nanny's helpless viewpoint strips Jason's tragic existence of its action- packed veneer to reveal the spiteful origins and terrible consequences of heavenly meddling. Nowhere does this production reveal its depth more eloquently than in its vision of the silent grief of Medea, a crumpled puppet, part manipulated by Nanny, part consoled.

Venue 34, The Famous Grouse House, to 30 Aug (not 18, 26), 7.45pm (0131- 220 5606)

MH

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