Dandy

Big Empty Barn Productions&emdash;WAG

In this play, seasoned performer Bremner Duthie assumes the character of Mergatroid, a dandy who tries to persuade us to adopt a personal style based on who we are rather than what Calvin Klein or Abercrombie & Fitch tell us to wear.

Duthie has a terrific singing voice and inhabits his character completely. Unfortunately for me, the Mergatroid character wore out his welcome early in the piece. He just didn’t seem to be saying anything new after a while, and I found myself waiting for him to finish so that I could hear the next song.

Here, too, a sameness evolves. The play as I understand it is a plea for people to be individuals, and to use their clothes as a personal statement of individuality. Unfortunately for me, the singing undercut that message. Each of the song interpretations had a sameness to them, regardless of the period they came from or the tradition in which they were written.

All that said, it was a very pleasant way to spend 75 minutes, and he should have had more than the 20 something people in the audience on a Tuesday afternoon.

Kevin Longfield