Theatre & Dance reviews: Captain Corelli's Mandolin and Wasteland

Captain Corelli’s Mandolin
King’s Theatre, Edinburgh
Three stars
At Theatre Royal, Glasgow,
June 25-29

Wasteland
Tramway, Glasgow
Five stars
At Northern Stage, Newcastle,
September 25 & 26,
then touring until November 13

LOUIS de Bernieres’s Captain Corelli’s Mandolin is one of the most successful British novels of the last quarter century. It is also one of the most controversial.

The book is a Second World War love story set on the Greek island of Cephalonia. It tells the tale of the love affair between Pelagia, an educated and beautiful young islander, and the titular, musically-inclined officer, a reluctant warrior in the occupying Italian army.

The novel caused considerable consternation, especially in Greece, on the grounds of its political tendentiousness and various historical inaccuracies. De Bernieres’s Churchillian traducing of the communist partisans who had fought against the forces of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy caused particular offence.

Like John Madden’s 2001 film adaptation, this new stage version, by Scottish writer Rona Munro, avoids de Bernieres’s most egregious prejudices. In their place we have a mildly humorous grievance between the deeply conservative Drosoula (mother of Pelagia’s betrothed, Mandras) and Velisarios (the village strongman, and ardent communist). Some of the novel’s cultural stereotypes endure, however (the Italian soldiers, for instance, enjoy nothing so much as belting out Verdi arias).

The transition from famous, episodic prose fiction to free-flowing drama can be as difficult as it is lucrative. Munro has a lot of personal and historical back story to fill in before Corelli can arrive on Cephalonia.

To her credit, she makes up the ground with a lightness of touch and no little amount of humour. However, no amount of Dr Iannis (Pelagia’s father) urinating on the herbs or perfomer Luisa Guerreiro (of Cirque du Soleil fame) impersonating a goat can disguise the fact that director Melly Still’s production is a pretty conventional affair.

No fault attaches to the generally strong cast, however. Joseph Long’s dignified, somewhat pompous Iannis impresses, as does Eve Polycarpou’s cantankerous-but-decent Drosoula.

Much of the choreography of war is weak and half-hearted. Designer Mayou Trikerioti’s minimalist set is unlovely, but effective when images are projected onto the huge, beaten metal plate that hangs behind the action.

Fans of the novel and/or the movie may well enjoy the show as a work of straightforward storytelling. As theatre, however, it lacks daring and inventiveness.

Qualities that are never absent from choreographer Gary Clarke’s immense and memorable dance piece Wasteland. The sequel to his acclaimed work of political history Coal (which focused on the bitter Miners’ Strike in Britain in 1984-85), the production makes a brilliant and entirely convincing connection between the deindustrialisation of the UK by the Conservative governments of Margaret Thatcher and John Major and the rise of rave culture.

The choreography starts from the desolate figure of The Last Miner; the final casualty of Michael Heseltine’s 1992 pit closures programme, the character is danced with great power and empathy by Alistair Goldsmith. He is attended by The Pit Men Singers (local community performers) and brass musicians (from the Whitburn Band of West Lothian), in an opening that is, at least, equal to socialist writer Lee Hall’s Billy Elliot in its heartfelt sympathy and regard for the mining communities.

Through the character of the miner’s son, named simply The Boy (performed with captivating frustration, rage, grace and vigour by Tom Davis Dunn), Clarke takes us into the rave culture of the next generation. Facing the mass unemployment and flagrant political neglect that preceded the insecurities of the “gig economy” and zero hours contracts, working-class youth turned to one of the most vibrant, and rebellious, sub-cultures of modern times.

The “succession of repetitive beats” decried in the farcical language of the Tories’ Criminal Justice and Public Order Act of 1994 provide Clarke with the kind of high-octane musical score that we rarely hear in contemporary dance. Performing to tracks by the likes of Test Department and KLF, the young dancers remind us that John Lydon’s refrain “anger is an energy” applied at least as much to rave culture as it did to punk.

The movement is ultra-dynamic in its evocation of the liberated chaos of the rave scene (much of which, symbolically, took place in the post-industrial setting of abandoned warehouses). Shifting between superb group dances and equally potent individual movement, Clarke and his universally excellent cast achieve the paradoxical Holy Grail of dance: namely, the expression of freedom through structure.

More than most avowedly political art, Wasteland understands the primacy of aesthetics. Never hectoring or polemical, its stunning combination of movement, music and imagery makes for an unforgettable work of angry, emotional, celebratory, political dance.

Dancer Tom Davis Dunn leaves the company now for pastures new (he was given a tearful send off last weekend at Tramway). He will be a hard act to follow for whoever takes his place when the tour returns in the autumn.