Four stars for Don Juan
0 Troupe are high-energy performers
best-looking audience in history.
Don Juan is played by different people over the course of the show. With a silver-edged baseball cap and shades, his “playa” persona is simultaneously silly and
sexy, with the melodrama of his escapades only matched by the grandiose declarations of love and hate from the clown-like company’s personal lives.
And when the sheer emotion of it all gets too much, the group turns to song – belting out power ballads that slice through the action in a way that’s as ridiculous as it is rousing.
There’s a brilliant mix of high drama and domestic drama, as well as wry insights into everyday romance, in the sharply written but partly improvised show. “What do you do to get over a broken heart?” a woman’s asked at one point. “Watch Netflix?” she suggests.
A monologue that imagines an alternative life for Don Juan, with a stable job, three kids and one monogamous relationship sounds horrifyingly dull and asks: which version of reality is really the ridiculous one?
Is Don Juan “an arsehole”, or simply free in a way we aren’t? It’s an interesting question and one that encourages us all to live and love bigger and better. SALLY STOTT
Until 27 August. Today 1:10pm. Summerhall (Venue 26) JJJ
Willy Hudson guides his audience through the fraught landscape of gay sex and dating in this funny, candid hour. It’s a ground-level introduction. He lays out the terminology for who’s “top” and “bottom” in gay sex (ie who typically gives and who receives when it comes to penetration), and how there’s an inherent patriarchal misogyny in the distinction, even in this arena where women are rarely present. It’s to do with how “bottoms” are often characterised as submissive and thus feminine; how the division of gay men into “masculine” and “feminine” categories perpetuates the myth of masculinity having higher status. For his part, Hudson prefers to identify as “queer” and sidestep this malarkey wherever possible.
He’s a fun performer, displaying the right amount of goofy nervousness for someone learning the ropes, but underlying it with a surefooted understanding of what he’s trying to convey (he’ll also not be secondguessed on anything Beyoncé-related). Some of the schtick wears thin – his ukulele interludes and “approaches” upon a mannequin torso are only passingly humorous and stretched too far – but for the most part, it’s an engaging, honest and informative show.
NIKI BOYLE
Until 26 August. Today 4:25pm