Little Gem
Traverse
****
Palace of the End
Traverse
****
The commendable Traverse hosts some big hits this Fringe but in these two pieces, which, interestingly, both have three actors delivering monologues on almost bare stages, it has two understated but richly rewarding treasures.
Both of them, in fact, could rightfully claim the title "little gem".
What's so refreshing and surprising and delightful about Little Gem, a cracker of a debut from Elaine Murphy, is the generosity of the writing.
As we're taken through a year in the lives of three generations of women in contemporary Dublin, their everyday joys and sadnesses are portrayed - and this is a rare skill in film, television or theatre - in a way that is not banal, cloying or EastEnders.
Just in case we'd forgotten, Murphy and her note-perfect actresses (Sarah Greene, Hilda Fay and Anita Reeves) remind us that not all men are bastards, pensioners ripe for ridicule or teenage pregnancies disasters.
When grief strikes, we're chastened but also reassured that this remarkable, everyday trio will cope because of the un-flashy but iron-strong bonds that bind families like theirs.
Canadian Judith Thompson takes as her subjects, in the still, accomplished writing of Palace of the End, three people cast adrift on the hideously choppy waters that are, or were until recently, the situation in Iraq.
These victims of collateral human damage are Lynndie England (Kellie Bright), the US soldier involved in the violence at Abu Ghraib, weapons inspector David Kelly (Robert Demeger) and Iraqi widow Nehrjas (Eve Polycarpou), whose family suffered horrifically under Saddam.
There's much to admire in a rich and detailed 90 minutes, not least Thompson's adroit highlighting of the fact that England, plucked from a Dairy Queen in West Virginia to fight international terrorism, suffered both at home and in Iraq a degraded existence predicated on violence and bullying.
Both until 30 August (0131 228 1404, www.traverse.co.uk).
