time, we saw about one percent of whatnwas playing — and that’s just countingnthe theater, not the music, and dance,nand the poetry readings.nEdinburgh is very proud of a festivalnthat has put it on the international map,nbrings in tourist dollars, and allows it tonoutshine London for a month. Fittinglynenough, then, the best play we saw wasna Scottish production: the TraversenTheatre’s production of The Hour ofnthe Lynx. Edinburgh’s Traverse has angood reputation for Fringe shows andnthis year mounted (among elevennothers) this excellent play by Per OlavnEnquist. The Hour of the Lynx is reallyna Swedish Agnes of God, for those ofnyou who remember John Pielmeier’sndrama about a mother superior, a psychiatrist,nand a novice charged withnmurdering her newborn baby, all inntheir various ways struggling for faith.nHere in Enquist’s play there is a youngnman (charged with a seemingly purposelessnmurder), a psychiatrist, and anfemale pastor.nThe boy, never named, has beenngiven a cat as part of an empathynexperiment, the results of which havenbeen disastrous — and the play takesnfor its themes the psychiatrist in neednof counseling, the pastor in need ofnfaith, and a young man who with hisnbroken family and broken mind needsndeath more than anything else. Thenloss of the cat and his return, hisn”conversations” with the boy, and hisnpromise that he died and was risen innorder to bring the boy home — to thenonly heaven he can imagine, his grandfather’snnow destroyed house — unfoldnin a series of angry three-way conversations.nThe great power of Enquist’snplay comes from the poignancy ofnthese searches for God, for the neednthat even enlightened modern Swedennhas for some rhyme and reason, and forna very personal Savior. I can’t tell hownwell Kim Dambaek’s translation followsnthe original, but it played beautifully,nand Simon Donald was especiallyngood as the boy.nOddly enough, that was about it forna solid drama among the productionsnwe saw. Everything else, howeverngood, was spectacle. The productionnvalues were very high in an Americannshow, Juan Darien, produced by thenMusic-Theatre Group of New York.nOriginally staged at the BrooklynnAcademy of Music in 1988, JuannDarien won two Obies, no doubt for itsnsophisticated mix of music and masksnand puppetry. Uruguayan HoracionQuiroga’s story is about a jaguar cubnturned into a child by the love of hisnfoster mother, and turned back into anjaguar by the cruelty of his neighbors.nThe puppets ranged from Balinesenshadow puppets to huge facial masks tonfull-scale, larger-than-life humanpoweredndolls, including an evilnschoolteacher with a long warning fingernand an open, flapping book atop hisnhead instead of hair. The lyrics werensung in Spanish; the music was modernnwith a heavy overlay of Asian andnAustralian instruments; and the castnself-consciously multiracial. Despitenthe youth of the show’s hero and thennumber of children in the audience,nthis is not a show for kids, and itsnneedless coarseness was dismaying.nBut visually it was a success, and if thenpuppets were not completely original,nreminiscent as they were of Coppehanand Nutcracker and Edvard Munch,nthey were wonderful all the same.nAlso beautifully produced but again,nnot really a play in the old-fashionednsense was Daniel Reardon’s Spenser’snLaye, done by the Irish company Gonnaught.nHere Edmund Spenser is annidealist in medieval garb, his patronnRaleigh a bellowing Texan, his admirernRobert Devereux a Restoration fop,nand his wife Elizabeth a Gork housewifenwho reappears (it’s the same actress)nas his patroness Elizabeth Gloriana.nSpenser’s Laye is a play aboutnplaying with language — an Elizabethannpasttime if there ever was one —nbut the mix of periods is confusing andnseemingly purposeless, except as partnof the joke.nThe drama turns on the paternity ofnEdmund Spenser’s beloved son, thenintrigues of Raleigh and Devereux andnGecil in a fight for the favors of thenQueen, a poetical contest, andnSpenser’s pension. The set and costumesnwere beautiful in black andnwhite, with a huge round mirrorncenterstage that served variously as bednand step and, when Gloriana stoodnupon it, the world at her feet. Equallynwonderful were the period songs,namong them “Musing,” Raleigh’sn”Now What Is Love,” and “Tobacco isnLike Love.”nIn the disappointing category fallsnBritain’s National Youth Music Thea-nStop Population-ControlnTotalitarian Lies!nThe media and your public library are jammedfullnwith over-population gloom-and-doom propagandanfrom outfits like IPPF, USAID, UNFPA andnmany others.nFight back with Population Research InstitutenReview! 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