EDINBURGH REVIEWS: THEATRE Drink Vinegar Gentlemen Theatre Workshop

EDINBURGH REVIEWS: THEATRE

Drink Vinegar Gentlemen

Theatre Workshop, Venue 20 (0131-226 5425), times vary, to 28 Aug

BOOKS ASSUME a heightened status under a regime of censorship, each word a possible trigger for bloodshed. It makes sense, therefore, that Teatr Biuro Podrozy's charming production Drink Vinegar Gentlemen has as its central prop a book that dominates a third of the stage, ultimately proving to be ineffective as either a text, a shelter, or a hiding place.

This is a marked departure from the company's Carmen Funebre, a dark, looming meditation on war. A more "quaint" absurdist tone dominates this play, which takes the works of the writer Daniil Kharms - persecuted by Stalin for his satirical children's stories - and turns them into a series of elliptical and visually quirky observations on a system that uses fear rather than logic to govern its people.