21st. CENTURY POE
9th
May: FALLING FOR THE USHERS 10th.
May: HEART SHAPED HOLE
Southside
Fringe 2015. The Bungo, Nithsdale Road, Glasgow.
8pm 9
& 10th.
May Tickets £7 / £6
Tickets
for FALLING FOR THE USHERS:
http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/1391795
Tickets
for HEART SHAPED HOLE:
Marty
Ross (BBC Radio horror; Doctor Who audio) drags Edgar Allan kicking &
screaming into the modern world in a horror double bill of
storytelling performances!
"True!
- nervous - very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why
will you say that I am mad?"
In
virtually all the greatest chillers of Edgar Allan Poe, the same note
is struck straightaway: an isolated, tormented narrator wants –
needs!
– to tell us of the strange and terrible experiences he has
undergone. They are ideally suited, therefore, to contemporary
theatre’s great comeback kid, the most ancient and suddenly most
modern form of narrative theatre: live
storytelling.
As
a theatrical storyteller with a flair for the Gothic and macabre - as
reflected in his parallel career as playwright for the likes of BBC
radio’s “Marvellously chilling” (Guardian)
Darker Side Of The Border, Ghost Zone & Catch My Breath, as well
as Moyamensing, his 2014 Halloween show for Radio Scotland, plus
Doctor Who and award-nominated Dark Shadows audio drama - Marty Ross
has seized upon the dramatic potential of Poe’s tales. But as a
storytelling ‘modernist’ keen to shift this resurgent form away
from once-upon-a-time-in-a-land-far-away
‘folkiness’, he has no intention of presenting Poe’s stories as
period pieces: rather he has radically updated them to our era, both
in plot & language – while shifting the setting to his native
Glasgow: and now after having performed them to sell-out houses and
five star reviews everywhere from the Edinburgh Fringe to the London
Horror Festival, he brings his distinctly Glaswegian horror aesthetic
home to Glasgow's south side for this year's Southside Fringe.
In
line with this distinctive approach, FALLING FOR THE USHERS (Saturday
9th
May) shifts Poe’s incestuous siblings from their misty Gothic manor
to the world of Damien Hirst / Chapman Bros.– type contemporary
art. But when an old friend from Glasgow School of Art shows up, the
scene is set for a denoument as dark and tragic as that of the
original story. On Sunday 10th.
May, HEART SHAPED HOLE sets Poe’s Tell Tale Heart beating against a
background of Glasgow tower block drug dealing, as young junkie on
the make Stanley tries to murder his way to power, but can't escape
that strange pounding in his head.... Perverse passions, substance
abuse, macabre humour, murderous violence… shift Poe from his olde
worlde settings to our
times and one is close to the world of David Lynch, William
Burroughs, even Irvine Welsh.
Ross'
performances are far removed from the comfy-chair raconteur-ing of
too many people’s clichés of live storytelling. Ross’s
performance style is in-your-face, expressionist, intensely physical…
more Theatre of Cruelty than Jackanory. Those who have managed to
overlook live storytelling till now have been ‘astonished’ at the
theatrical intensity of his performances, as attested by the reviews
below:
On
FALLING FOR THE USHERS:
“Ross
has a great aptitude for suspense and terror, and he hurls himself
into his tale with energy and passion, in words which ring with the
native Glasgow rhythm... an accomplished piece of work which builds
towards a chilling conclusion.” – The Scotsman - review by Claire
Smith
“…poetically
re-worked ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’ manages, in its
modernisation, to preserve and revere the original, even intensifying
its impact. Marty Ross delivers a bewitchingly good story that leaves
a haunting reminder long after the lights have gone down.” – 3
weeks: Review By Katharine Wootton
On
HEART SHAPED HOLE:
“An
insanely good piece of storytelling... Ross is a master craftsman who
never turns down the pressure, painting vile pictures and weaving a
grotesque spell. The tone is foul and relentless - Trainspotting
meets Gothic horror…. Ross’ violently impressive performance make
this a heart-pounding triumph which demands appreciation.” –
Broadway Baby: Review by Gwen Sims-Williams
“This
was visceral. Marty Ross is a compelling narrator and onstage
presence. … left you thinking as well as reeling… This was
theatre that kept you on edge and occasionally threatened to send you
off it. As a raconteur it is the utter conviction with which Ross
performs that… draws you into his world. An immensely entertaining
ride that scared and shocked in equal measure – a fair ground ghost
ride for the 21st Century…” – .Fringe Review: Reviewed by
Donald C Stewart
