This is the perfect Fringe show. It's short. It's snappy. It bursts with intellectual condundra. It's weird. Deeply weird. It's funny. And at its heart lie two dazzling performances which, unlike much of the fast-fiction conceits of the month, will stay with you long after you leave the venue. And if that's not enough to woo you, the seats are easily the comfiest you will find in the Burgh.
Fizzles with philosophical deconstructions and comic flashes
Ludwig Van Beethoven (Martin John Mills) and his friend Quasimodo (Harald Djurken) are presenting a panel discussion to discuss sound design, specifically their search for the baffling and impossible cue described at the end of Anton Checkhov’s The Cherry Orchard.
And if the premise alone is not absurdist enough for you, hold on to your organ stops, for it gets weirder and weirder. Mickle Maher's brilliant script explores how two men - who can have never even met - might interpret a fictional sound dreamed up by a playwright born years after their own deaths.
Mills' slick Beethoven is a sharp suited, oleaginous know-all; Djurken's Quasimodo a lumpen feel-all. The cultural clash between classical romanticism and grubby medievalism is suggested through eyebrow rolls and grunts: the disconnect between each world exemplified by the attention to muddy detail in the physical representation of the fictional man and the lack of such accoutrements for the factual. Perhaps it is easier to time hop if you already have a foot in reality.
Beethoven exudes confidence and charisma; Quasimodo, the resignation of defeat. And never has a cardboard box been unpacked with such humanness and humanity. The script fizzles with philosophical deconstructions and comic flashes which are delivered with deadpan earnestness and utter conviction in the increasingly surreal academic landscape. Whilst the text considers failure and our reaction to it; that is something which need not concern director Rebecca Garron and the team behind this piece.
If one takes a moment to consider the origins and nomenclature of Fringe theatre, then it is unlikely you will find anything more worthy of being the standard bearer. Please go and see it. If not, it will be just another of your silent life failures, destined not remain unscorned because it was never even attempted.
