Critics’ choice - Duska Radosavljevic
Who are you?
Reviewer, teacher and theatre practitioner - so a bit of a multiple personality. This is my tenth festival with The Stage, although over the years I have also worked as a full-time dramaturg in Newcastle and as an educationalist with the RSC.
What is your favourite type of performance?
I like a good combination of skill, hard work and emotional truth.
What are you looking forward to the most this year?
Midnight toast with the rest of the Stage team in the kitchen of our new flat. Good shows. And award ceremonies.
What are you least looking forward to?
The obstacle race up the Mound in five seconds in order to make it to the next show.
What is the best piece of advice for visitors?
Wear a T-shirt saying, “I’ve already picked all the shows I want to see”, if you must walk up the Royal Mile.
Duska’s top 5 shows
- Subway (Traverse 3). Vanishing Point’s creation of a few years ago, The Lost Ones, was such an extraordinary piece of Lecoq-influenced Scottish theatre, I am really looking forward to seeing what they’ll do with the band from Kosovo this time.
- David Greig He has three shows on this year, including his adaptation of the Bacchae for the National Theatre of Scotland at the EIF, Damascus at the Traverse and Yellow Moon with TAG, also at the Traverse. Any one of these will do.
- My actual EIF picks include La Didone by the Wooster Group (Royal Lyceum) as a kind of show that would be good for the soul, with the added classical value of being directed by LeCompte, followed by Trisha Brown’s triptych at the Edinburgh Playhouse, set to the music of Laurie Anderson, Claudio Monteverdi and John Cage.
- St Catherine of Siena (Old St Paul’s Church) by Nancy Murray. The fact that this is Bill Murray’s sister - and an actual Dominican nun - performing her one-woman show, certainly stirs histrionic interest, regardless of religious denomination.
- Review This by David McSavage - although constantly evading and being evaded by the approval of the comedy establishment, the disarmingly direct Dubliner remains a guaranteed crowd-puller on the street or at the Tron.
