EDINBURGH 2013 - BWW Reviews: BETWEEN, theSpace @ Surgeons Halll, August 16 2013
'Between' is packing them in. Its poster design is a fine example of how to attract your intended audience, with two nubile young men in a topless clinch. And indeed, the audience is almost exclusively male, and it's a capacity crowd, so full marks to the marketing.
The show itself, though, is a bit of a slog. The two men, NICHOLAS CAMPBELL and writer Oskar Brown, play a collection of male pairs, all involved sexually or romantically to some degree. What we see are snapshots of each relationship, detailing some teenagers' sexual awakening, an adult gay couple and a bit of illicit teacher/student attraction. None of the strands is particularly engaging, unless you're after some mild titillation - I lost count of the times the actors took their tops off, and though it's presented as a way to mark switches from character to character, it's fairly gratuitous and ultimately rather tedious.
Some sweeping, ethereal music pops in and out, suggesting you're seeing something profound, but I couldn't quite find anything particularly meaningful in any of the stories. Campbell injects some much-needed energy into the play at several points, with a naturalistic delivery that gives the dialogue a sense of spontaneity. Brown is less engaging, though his is not a bad performance so much as it is a glum one. That said, there is some potent chemistry between the two.
The play is marred by the space, with sightlines obscured from most seats, and in a play that sells itself on nudity that's got to be an issue. Still, if a bit of flesh is what you're after and you sit in the front row you probably won't leave disappointed.
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