Lotte's Gift

This recipe for an autobiographical slideshow sandwich with musical filling could so easily have turned out to be unappetising. Like all top-notch meals, however, quality depends on a mix of good, fresh ingredients and natural talent. The elegant, understated set, tastefully edited visual stills and video footage and simple costume are a good start. Karin Schaupp, the attractive young classical guitarist who performs in this one-woman show, has natural talent to spare. Mix it with the secret ingredient of music, expertly played, and you have a hit on your hands.The show tells the life story of Karin’s grandmother, a sweet-voiced lady who provides the inspiration and foil against which we trace Karin’s own development. We hear of her grandmother’s experience of living in wartime Germany, her first love, her marriage, her bravery, her fortitude, her courage when faced with her fate as a victim of circumstance. This could so easily be played as a harrowing tale of domestic abuse, or people’s inhumanity to other people – Karin’s greatest achievement is in not doing so. She gives thanks that against this background, she still felt she grew up in an atmosphere of love.Karin’s guitar playing is excellent, her characterisation of her grandmother convincing. And her grandmother’s life story gives Karin perfect opportunities to insert pieces from her repertoire which acquire a subtext which works very well. She specialises in sweet, lyrical sounds, perfectly judged in terms of a mix of subtle dynamics and racy rubato. Mistress of the subito piano, she keeps the audience spellbound. Where this hallmark playing style lets her down slightly is in her arrangement of Albéniz’ Asturias. The fiery gypsy music background which inspired this piece would give it more gravitas, coming as it does at a point in the performance when Karin is giving a tribute to her mother – her parent, and teacher – a difficult mix if ever there was one. A bit more of the struggle, and a bit less of the saccharine love and respect would have added drama at this point, which could easily have been resolved later. The Spanish fires failed to light up this side of their relationship.The show opens and ends with a direct address to the audience, but is played out mainly as a dialogue between Karin and her grandmother. There was not enough difference in tone between the two when I saw the show. Both devices sounded too scripted and tended to be slightly exclusive in performance terms, particularly in the beginning and end sections. On rare occasions, towards the end in particular, both characters used asides to include the audience and the whole piece lit up.