- OTHER MEDIA
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- review in the Financial Times
- by Chloe Veltman
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- Irvine Welsh does not seem an author to be interested in writing a
play about Munchkins. From the Scottish writer's 1993 debut novel Trainspotting,
about the drug-addled existence of a gang of disaffected Edinburgh youths,
to his forthcoming The Bedroom Secrets of the Master Chefs, concerning
a womanising alcoholic's journey towards self-knowledge, Welsh's writing
has earned him notoriety on both sides of the Atlantic as a chronicler
of urban depravity.
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- Unlikely as it seems, the diminutive, eternally perky inhabitants of
the Land of Oz are the focus of Welsh's new play. But, true to form, Welsh
is determined to show that we are not in Kansas any more.
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- Co-written with the British screenwriter Dean Cavanagh, the salacious
comedy draws on a Hollywood myth about the on-set suicide of a midget actor
during the shooting of the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz. Inspired
by rumours of wild Munchkin sex orgies and general dwarf debauchery that
allegedly took place after hours (Judy Garland reputedly once referred
to her pint-sized colleagues as "little drunks"), Welsh's and
Cavanagh's play imagines the circumstances that might have driven Charles
Merryweather, a British midget and Munchkin ensemble member, to his untimely
death.
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- Though enthusiastically performed, the arrhythmic world premiere staging
of Babylon Heights at the boxy EXIT Theatre might make audiences
want to click their heels three times and vow there's no place like home.
It is not entirely the production's fault: all four characters are based
on stereotypes and three out of the four refuse to evolve.
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- Nevertheless, by insisting the drama be performed by full-sized rather
than dwarf actors and staged on a larger-than-life set, the authors imbue
their sordid tale with a layer of thoughtful allegory: Babylon Heights
may be about the mistreatment of little people on the Oz film
set, but it is equally about mistreatment of "little people"
in a bullying, "big people" centric world.
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