... The Thrie Estates' is back at the Edinburgh Festival TO BORROW the language of the film world, Sir David Lindsays The Thrie Estaites is something of a golden oldie of the Edinburgh Festival. It is fondly remembered as the big discovery of the early years when Tyrone Guthrie took post-war audiences by storm with his exciting presentations in the Church of Scotland As sembly Hall, ...

... Rabelaisian TO SET the scene for the evening's entertainment, members of the audience arriving for Russell Hunter's readings from the works of Rabelais in one of Edinburgh's most famous masonic halls, are plied with wine, bread, cheese and iruu. The programme note speaks of Rabelais' appetite for joy in living and the translator of his works is quoted on his out spokenness. And, in case ...

... Black Too Black THE TECHNIQUE of the black cabinet, of which Jiri Srnec and his Black Theatre of Prague are skilled exponents, holds few surprises now for London audiences and their la test two-week season at Sadler's Wells Theatre (Sep tember 3) was the dullest programme they have so far brought. Normally the greatest joy in watching this technique comes from the magic movement of the ...

... Beauties of Spartacus POSSIBLY ballet like opera is at its most enthralling when individual performers have established a personality before an audience. This could explain why the second and third acts of Khachaturian's Spartacus at the King's, Edinburgh, clear in their evidence of personal relationships and expressive of wonderful solo dancing and pas de deux, made such a stirring ...

... Bartok ballets THE ONLY REAL fault with the Hungarian State Opera and Ballet's first programme at the King's, Edinburgh, was the length of the interval between these two comparatively short works, Bluebeard's Castle by Bartok, and The Miraculous Mandarin, music also by Bartok, choreography Laszlo Seregi. It arrested the undoubted sense of satisfaction felt at the masterly presentation ...

... Woodward and Dench in Molnar's 'Wolf' OUR WARMEST GRATITUDE is due to Frank Hauser and the Oxford Playhouse Company for bringing to our notice Ferenc Molnar's The Wolf, given its English premiere at the Playhouse. On the evidence now before us. The Wolf has not deserved its neglect in Bri tain. It was first staged in English, in a translation by Leo Dichtricstein, by David Belasco in New ...

... Obscure Shoemakers' TWO CLOSELY-TYPED PAGES of notes accompany the programme for the Half Moon's latest venture in the drama of socialism; Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz's The Shoemakers. They are not easy to follow and the play is just as bad. Half the first-night audience on September 11 arrived late, and they seemed to spend the remainder of the one-and-a-half hours for which the first ...

... Free Attractions OVAL HOUSE, Kennington, seems to be holding its own Festival of Theatre at the moment, and all the attractions are free. On Sunday evening, there were four separate shows going on; you could see three with ease, and, with a bit of juggling, catch most of four. There was a 20-minute dance situation called Frame and presented by two performers known as the Rescue Principle ...

... Celibate Lives ONLY technically an Irishman is how the programme notes for George Moore's Celibate Lives at the King's Head on September 13 describe its author. This is another one-man show, devised and acted by Allan McClelland and, if Moore s attitude to Ireland was anything but patriotic, his work was drenched in the miasma of delicate word-patterns one as sociates with that country. ...

... Drums of Revolution THE STRUGGLE to survive, inequality and selfishness; the basic conditions of our lives, both personal and social. Of all playwrights, Brecht applied himself most directly to these issues, and Drums in the Night at Hamnstead Theatre Club until September 29 after a run at Edinburgh, is characteristic in its subject and its subtle treatment. The first of Brecht's play to ...

... Breughel Nightmare AND They Put Handcuffs on the Flowers, as directed by the author, Fernando Arrabal at the Open Space on September 12, turns out to be an essay in choreographing a Breughel nightmare for seven actors and a variety of properties. It is played with as much sincerity as the author brought to it in the first place, and most competently, but it is only fleeting images which ...

... BOTH as choreographer and dancer, Christopher Bruce is one of Ballet Rambert's greatest assets. Last week he was seen in both aspects of his talent, firstly as choieographer of Duets and later as dancer par excellence in Glen Tetley's Pierrot Lunaire. Duets. which opened on Sep tember 21, is an extraordinarily peaceful work, something along the lines of a latter-day Lilac Garden with ...