ARTS
Festival foibles and follies
Magnus Linklater finds drama inside and outside the theatre in Edinburgh There has been no lack of drama at the 50th Edinburgh Festival: and I don't mean only in the theatre. There was nail-biting tension over whether Robert Lepage would overcome the technical hitches that threat- ened — and finally sabotaged — the open- ing of his one-man performance of Elsinore at the King's Theatre.
There have been rumblings of discontent over the sheer momentum of the Festival juggernaut, with Professor George Steiner warning that the ultimate test of all suc- cessful ventures is knowing when to stop, and Frank Dunlop, a previous director, complaining that the music programme has become bland, predictable, and dangerous- ly similar to Salzburg's (an odd one this, since during his time most critics attacked the Festival precisely because it wasn't as good as Salzburg).
There has been controlled panic in the box-office over a worrying lurch in ticket sales; the usual rows about sex, violence and comedy on the Fringe; and the delight- ful sub-plot of whether Timothy Clifford would succeed in raising f2 million in time to save Guercino's 'Erminia Finding the Wounded Tancred' for Britain (the ending of these little set-pieces may be pre- dictable, but they are no less exhilarating for that).
But, of course, the running theme of this, the most expensive and elaborate Festival ever mounted, the one that has dominated conversations in every foyer from the Play- house to the Usher Hall, has been Edin- burgh's new traffic system and the iniquity of being unable to turn eastwards into Princes Street, to find your way successfully out of Charlotte Square, or arrive any- where in time for curtain-up.
I shall return to that, but first a little mystery, not hitherto reported. On the morning after the failed first night of Elsi- nore, the technical crew, who had sweated blood to solve its mechanical problems, and were reduced to tears when they finally failed, were outraged to read the comments of an unnamed member of the public quot- ed in the Scotsman accusing them of being amateurish.
Using the Festival's sophisticated com- puter booking system, they tracked the luckless fellow down, and discovered that he had booked seat M7 at the following night's performance of Orlando starring Miranda Richardson at the Lyceum. There they confronted him and suggested he join them outside for a more detailed discus- sion of his views. History does not relate the nature of what was said, but it is safe to assume that the gentleman in question now has a rather different view of the technical competence of the crew. It's a salutary les-
son for us all: in Edinburgh, there is no hiding place.
Brian McMaster, the Festival's director, now in his fifth year, has no great need of a hiding place, though he always seems to be looking for one — as an inveterate smoker, he is usually to be seen during intervals lurking in the street outside the theatre, cultivating the art of anonymity as he draws on a snatched cigarette. He has taken a big gamble on the 50th Festival, spending more than ever before at a time when funding has been stretched by standstill budgets and local government cutbacks. As a result, he needs to sell 12.5 per cent more tickets than last year, and last year was a record. Last weekend, he was 15 per cent ahead of the game, but with £300,000 worth of tickets to shift and just two weeks to go, a sudden and unexplained dip in sales caused the odd butterfly in the box- office. As to Frank Dunlop's criticisms of
predictability, they seem unfair. True, the American master of dance, Mark Morris, has been asked back for the fifth year run- ning, but he still seems to be breaking new ground, and, as McMaster points out, it would disappoint thousands of festival- goers if he were simply cut off in his prime; as for blandness, there is nothing particu- larly safe about a ballet without music unpromisingly labelled Behemoth, or a modern opera by the Scottish composer James Macmillan, or an Uncle Vanya entirely in Italian.
And comparisons with Salzburg are sure- ly a tribute to McMaster's influence — a few years ago they would have been laughed out of court. Gerard Mortier, Salzburg's director, is said to be deeply unhappy at suggestions in the European press that Edinburgh has stolen a lead, and now attracts performers such as Andras Schiff and conductors such as Claudio Abbado who might not have considered it a few years ago. Some serious music-lovers, like Sir Isaiah Berlin, have become con- verts to Edinburgh, and some of them have scrapped Salzburg altogether. This, of course, may have something to do with ticket prices. Mr McMaster has insisted that Edinburgh continues to hold its down, though he could easily have trebled the box-office take for events like Schoenberg's Gurrelieder at the Usher Hall which was sold out weeks ago. Prices for this and other star concerts range from £5 to £27.50 in Edinburgh. At Salzburg, £300 is now routine.
The Fringe continues to expand absurd- ly. There's too much comedy of uneven quality being crammed into commercially driven centres like the Pleasance and the Gilded Balloon, while genuine experimen- tal theatre is consigned to the outer fringes, where all too often it plays to empty halls. But there are still some wonderful surprises to encounter, and every effort to control it seems bound to fail. Perhaps like one of those viruses that threaten to take over the world, it will determine its own fate in the last reel (`Doctor, come and take a look at this, those cells seem to be destroying each other in front of our very eyes'). Perhaps, but, as they say in Scotland, dinnae hold yer breath. As to that new traffic system, the less said the better. Suffice it to observe that a plan which aims to drive motorists out of the city without any long-term strategy for alternative forms of transport is municipal insanity. And the vandalisation by a so- called traffic management scheme of Char- lotte Square, one of the finest examples of 18th-century design in Europe, is nothing less than a national disgrace.
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