‘Theatre is dying. Garry is our only hope,” we’re told. Arriving in Edinburgh with considerable buzz from the Melbourne and Brighton festivals, Damien Warren-Smith’s show – like Jon Pointing’s last year – is comic catnip for theatre people, and a hoot for everyone else. Warren-Smith plays Garry Starr: gangly of limb, quivering with sincerity, and frequently stripped down to nothing but the ruff around his neck. He’s here to rescue forsaken theatre by demonstrating every one of its genres in 60 minutes. He manages 13, by which time the clownish chaos has reached a dizzying pitch.
The idea, he tells us, is to breathe life back into an art form that’s been hollowed out by his bete noire, and supposed former employer, the RSC. So here is Starr playing Pinter with an audience stooge, and being very particular about the famous pause. Euro-theatre is represented by a contemporary-dance Kafka. Slapstick descends into barely choreographed violence involving Starr, four punters and several floppy foam pipes.
The show’s claims to the highbrow, in other words, soon disappear under a complete works of silliness, intensified by Starr’s desperation to be taken seriously. Under the direction of Cal McCrystal, Warren-Smith leads us from extreme physical comedy (there’s an in-yer-face nude ballet), via droll foot-in-mouth commentary (“Mask theatre has been around almost as long as faces”), to moments of distinct theatrical skill. His tragedy masterclass, using unexpected pop lyrics to rewrite Romeo’s visit to Juliet’s tomb, is a comic gem, and bizarrely credible as a performance exercise, too. You can almost hear theatre’s heart come pounding back to life – but defibrillation has seldom before been this uproarious.
At the Underbelly Cowgate, Edinburgh, until 26 August.
