Why travel all the way to Edinburgh for fringe theatre when it's happening in London? This is a highly original play by Denise O'Leary which is a moral fable about the dangers of consumerism. Can working longer hours and buying more stuff ever make us happy? The answer is obviously no, and the message of the play is that the lovely Pandora, distracted by watching the 'real life box' into seeking a prosperous new lifestyle, can only find happiness when she puts her child and husband first.
I should own up to knowing the author, the director and most of the actors in this play, but I hadn't heard or read it before going to this production at the Etcetera in Camden Town, part of the Camden Fringe. Director Dimitry Devdariani has successfully reimagined this play, originally written for radio, for the stage as a kind of Slavic folk-tale with a modern twist. We're almost in the world of the golden cockerel or the goose that lays golden eggs. Pandora (Margarita Nazarenko) is poor but happy until her husband brings home a mysterious box with a key; eventually they open the 'real life box' which introduces them to a world of exotic food and drink, cigarettes, shampoos and other luxuries. The story arc and the gentle satire on consumerism are predictable, but what is interesting is the style of the production. It's the modern equivalent of a Russian lubok or crude woodcut, with sudden flashes of realism. With the exception of Pandora, the characters don't have names apart from Husband, Sister, Neighbour and so on, leaving little opportunity for subtle characterisation. But the cast, including Charles Church as the long-suffering husband, Richard Holt as a shop salesman and Tieva Lovell as Pandora's sister, inhabit their roles and their Slavic accents with real panache. This show should be transferring to the Rosemary Branch theatre in September, and is well worth the trip if you can't catch it at the Etcetera by August 11.
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