Edinburgh 2005

Astrakhan Winter - Venue 34, Adam House, Chambers Street, Edinburgh
7-29 August 2005, 3.00pm

Astrakhan Winter is being taken to the Edinburgh Fringe by the Cambridge ADC. (READ THE REVIEWS HERE)

This adrenalin-fuelled political fable presents characters resurrecting the past, evicted by the present and unable to find a future. Cambridge's finest offer a “fierce and constantly uncompromising,” (Scotsman) style of total theatre with an original musical score.

Introduction to Astrakhan Winter by Dic Edwards:
I believe that wars are fuelled by the vanity of leaders. No matter how much they believe in their cause or how much good they think they do, their vanity determines that they will ultimately do the wrong thing. It’s not for any man to declare any measure of saintliness for himself. This is the template for Walker.

The good person is the humble refugee Smerdyakov who is doomed by his goodness to bear the cross he is bound to invent. Other characters try to find truth in the confusion created by Walker; limited by their humanness they become obsessive and are driven to conclusions like Luke’s that in the end only the terrorist will be Good.

One of my revisited themes is the notion of eviction and the idea that normal society evicts the passionate and the truth seekers. Smerdyakov dies because he is a truth seeker; a refugee arrived in an indecent world, one determined by Walker’s vanity.

Manifest Destiny - Assembly Room05 at St George's West, Edinburgh,
6th - 29th August at 4.00pm

Music by Keith Burstein, words by Dick Edwards. Directed by Dave Whyrow. Supported by Spectacle Theatre Company (READ THE REVIEWS HERE)
www.manifestdestiny.co.uk
Running time: 90 mins
A Palestinian poetess who becomes a suicide bomber, a woman President in the White House who is declared ‘the first American Emperor’ – and the starkest of choices for the world.

The stunning new opera set in the ‘war on terror’ has generated controversy globally. A ravishing vision of the power of love. And the most politically explosive opera ever!

“My soul cried out”
Vanessa Redgrave

“A tango for torture, a waltz for the Oval office”
The Observer

“Moving, powerful, frighteningly topical”
BBC