Believe

Synopsis

Murder. Seduction. Torture. Decapitation, Infanticide. Rape. To a modern sensibility the tales of the Old Testament are wild and implausible. But recast these stories in a psychologically truthful light, or in a totally contemporary re-imagining, and what you have are stories that are shocking, even by today's sensationalist tabloid standards. Believe looks at the fascinating, tormenting and tormented, seducing and seduced, enraged and fearful, meek and impassioned women who, seemingly forgotten by God and mankind, have carved their names into history. Looking at the possible circumstances of these women's lives questions are raised that seem more pertinent now than ever. What does if mean to have faith? If God exists, what is He like? Is He or She or It something outside of us, or a force within us all? And just where does God fit in to our lives NOW?

Our Review:

21 January 2008

Linda Marlowe is nothing short of a phenomenon, and her new solo show Believe – first seen at the Traverse during last year’s Edinburgh Festival fringe – reveals all her qualities of vitality, sensuality, grace and beauty. Together with writer Matthew Hurt and director Gavin Marshall, she has come up with a time-bomb of a performance about women in war-time. And the detail is the detonator.

The four women Marlowe plays in the course of a packed, enthralling 70 minutes, are all updated versions of Old Testament characters: Rahab, the prostitute who sleeps with the enemy and declares that rape is not all that bad after the first time; Bathsheba, wife of Uriah the Hittite and later David; Judith, who beheaded Holofernes; and Hannah, whose seven sons refused to eat pork and were dismembered and roasted to death for their pains.

Marlowe mimes a prologue of a woman in a grey greatcoat wrapping up a man’s suit in a war zone buzzing with contemporary news...

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Latest User Review

joesmith - 23 January 2008:

Saw it in Edinburgh, Fantastic! (This star system really stinks) ...

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