The Heart/Spirit of Darkness/The Fringe

As predicted a matter of centimetres from where your eyes now rest, The Spirit of the Fringe Commissioning Award for 2007 has gone to...The Heart of Darkness, produced, performed and learned off by Gavin Kostick. The prize of e4000 will see a new show from Kostick for at the Project in next year's Fringe.

Gavin Kostick's Memory

Just in case any of you missed it, Gavin Kostick dropped by the comments (also below) to correct my assumption about his performance of The Heart of Darkness. As this was but one of two shows that Gavin had up at the Fringe this year, and was to consist of Gavin performing the entire text of Conrad's novella, I had taken for granted that the playwright would be reading the text.

No, siree, there was to be no such whimping out for our man: Kostick LEARNED BY HEART the entire text, and then performed it over the course of five-and-a-bit hours. Beside a stinging disappointment that I missed such a show, my strongest feeling is a sense of admiration for the Kurtzian single-mindedness of the approach. No wonder that Sara Keating (writing in The Irish Times) awarded the show five big stars. If that ain't "The Spirit of the Fringe" then i dont know what is. Rrrressspect!