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Latest items? Unedited? Fringe Report Uncut
HARISSA INTO HUMMUS
Verdict: Awful
Alhambra, Sydenham, August 2002
This is the worst play I have ever seen.
The limp punning of the title (on Alfonso Arau and Laura Esquivel's superb
Como Agua Para Chocolate (1992)) gives a taste of what lies within director
Leila Bandaranaike's suet dumpling of a script. It's weighed down further
by perfomances from a clearly unrehearsed cast that drag a moderate hour's
running time into what seems like eternity.
Hummus is centred in the zeitgeisty Trans-Mediterranean movement that relates
cultural experiences across the north-south coasts of the Med. There have
been fine examples: Fellini's 'spaghetti oasis' one-hander 'Omar O Roma!' is often
quoted as the precursor of what's now an established school of great theatre.
This isn't one of them. From the opening scene in which a Tamil chorus,
inspired by the director's Sri Lankan cultural heritage, but in Greece several
thousand miles out of place, serenades the ceremonial mixing of hummus prior
to a wedding feast, the script clunks.
It would be unfair to the actors and director to say that the play rises to a climax
- it simply drags limply to an all-too-welcome end, more slowly than watching
chick-peas soak. But in the final scene, Khalid (Hamid Khudhari) forgets his lines
(critical and few in a wedding scene), and Marika (Petra Karamanlis) looks as
if she's about to be sick.
It's difficult to comment on the technical work supporting this theatrical
disaster, due to a power-cut during the performance. One of the few cases where
you wish that old showbiz slogan 'The Show Must Go On' had never been invented.
END
Beth-Helen Cohen
reviewed Saturday 20 July 2002
Fringe Report (c) Fringe Report 2002-2012
www.fringereport.com
