The 1996 Adelaide Fringe program lists sixty-two entries under Theatre, not including another ten or so roosting under the heading of Comedy. The range is huge in both style and quality. There are a variety of spins on Shakespeare, revivals of classics such as Marlowe’s Edward II and Buchner’s Danton’s Death, as well as productions of contemporary playwrights Wallace Shawn, Edward Albee and Stephen Berkoff. There is also a gratifying array of new and self-devised work.

Lotus War , written by Julie Janson and crisply directed by Sally Sussman, is a monologue set in the Museum of the Mausoleum of Ho Chi Minh. A courteous young woman is greeting tourists, including Australian veterans, introducing them to the transformed Vietnamese society. But amidst the achievements of the present are the ghosts of the civil dead- memories of torture, rape and death, and the paranoia that each returning tourist is a blast from the past. Incorporating classical Vietnamese music devised by Ngoc-Tuan Hoang and evocatively performed by Dang Lan, Lotus War re-examines the place of women in the country’s history. There are risks of theatrical worthiness here. Instead, actor Valerie Berry brings a memorable freshness and precision.

Zhodi Cummings’ solo show The Bursting Heart is also nicely balanced. Collaborator with nerd comedians Lano and Woodley, Cummings’s own work also examines fragile comic territory. Secluded in her flat the young narrator consoles herself with peanut paste sandwiches while water begins to seep inexorably along the floors. Distracting herself with a meandering narrative about a fairy-tale figure named Empty Hands, Cummings and director Sue Giles, run close to the perils of whimsy but successfully create a subtle, original portrait of urban anxiety and the fragility of identity.

The double-bill at the Edinburgh Castle from Lucky Hearts has a swing at describing some aspects of the masculine. Shadowboxing, a fine monodrama by Michael Gaddes, is given a punchy physicality by Dushyant Kumar, as a young prize fighter faces his gay sexuality. Adapted from Benedict Eroteev’s novel of the same name, From Moscow to Petushki is a narrative of a Russian existentialist making the last train journey of his life. Tortured, alcoholic, neurotically sensitive, it is the portrait of a hobo intellectual, vigorously performed and deftly staged by director Doug Leonard with astute use of video and some edgy music from Andrew Tranter.

The most ambitious and rewarding show this week is Blueprint’s production of Howard Barker’s Wounds to the Face. Elegantly designed in Rear Window style by Imogen Thomas, with confident direction from Benedict Andrews, this fragmentary play is Howard Barker at his confrontational best. The human face is examined as a site of identity, power and erotics -and with relentless Artaudian economy Blueprint create a succession of chilling and diplacing images. A war veteran has lost his face in a mine explosion, a political demagogue creates the face of tyranny, a surgeon is tried for crimes against the integrity of the face, a painter is blinded for accurately painting the phiz of his emperor. Blueprint’s intelligent cogent production deserves a return season.

And also in the Fringe- as well as fronting sessions at Writers’ Week- Demon Dog James Ellroy is touring his literary medicine show. The distinguished crime writer, author of the LA Quartet and recently, Time magazine’s book of 1995, American Tabloid is doing a whistlestop show of readings, spruiking and hipster vogueing. Accompanied by The Jackson Code, Mark Snarski’s tasty seven piece band from Sydney, Ellroy pitches his view of the American psychosis. Parlaying his retro-crime narrative style to the stage Ellroy gives us the best crimes of his generation, destroyed by madness and the perfidy of the LA cops. It’s a great show, hepcats, full of bravura, spilled beans and reminders of the quality of his sinewy prose.

The Australian, Arts on Friday, March 3, 1996.