This biting portrait of Hollywood's Golden Age of ridiculous and decadent excesses explores the line between reality & fantasy, the politics of power & the shallowness of relationships in a roll call of movie greats.

Ian Watt is mesmerising as deranged director POSTERKRANTZ, calling the shots in a dreamworld of his own creation, slipping from hall-of-fame to has-been in hysterical nightmare.....

"Zer vill be hell to pay!"

Lights! Camera!! Action!!!

Epic Comedy!

REVIEW The Herald, 15h August 2006

FOUR STARS

The theme of artifice continues in this razor-sharp dissection of Hollywood's Golden Age. Behind the fantasy of glitz and glamour lies a nightmarish story in which we, the audience, are complicit.

Deftly directed by Tomek Borkowy, written by Michael Almaz and performed by Ian Watt, it opens to a sparse set and three faceless dummies. Ben Hur rolls behind them; music pours through the PA, and one of the dummies starts to stir and unmask, revealing itself as Posterkrantz, a director-dictator in monocle and jackboots, apparently based on Erich von Stroheim.

Watt as Posterkrantz - a self-congratulating sycophantic megalomaniac, caught up in and subjecting us to his endless roll call of movie triumphs - is terrifyingly terrific. But he soon moves from success to has-been, and descends into madness.

The atmosphere throughout is utterly claustrophobic, making me feel like an extra trapped in one of Posterkrantz's nightmarish creations. By the end, I was dying to get out, but for all the right reasons.

AIDEEN McLAUGHLIN

REVIEW edinburghguide.com, 10th August 2006

FOUR STARS

One man shows can go horribly wrong with actors often overindulging their egos, this one definitely does not. Instead Ian Watt produces a tremendous performance as the off tilt director Posterkrantz. From his monocle to his jackboots Watt oozes energy and class to create an immensely watchable and distinct character. As a result Posterkrantz's eccentricity is engaging and amusing rather than laughable.  
 
The director Tomeck Borkowy touch doesn't go unnoticed either. His clever use of period music, early movie footage projected on screens and canned laughter heighten Posterkrantz's twisted world. While the employment of two faceless dummies sharing the stage with Posterkrantz gives Watt something to actively engage with. Borkowy keeps the pace of the play at its maximum with quick and subtle lighting changes that also along with some intelligent direction aid in blurring the line between reality and fantasy for just under an hour. 
 
The play, set against the background of Hollywood's golden years, charts the success and failure of Posterkrantz, witnessing him at both his most wonderfully sycophantic and his most childlike and tempestuous and I recommend giving up some time to watch this emotionally unstable character. Watts' relationship with Stonehouse, the dummy cameraman, is particularly entertaining and maybe worth the entry alone.

REVIEW Sunday Herald, 20th August 2006

THREE STARS

There’s less textual invention, but an equally high-octane performance (from Ian Watt) in Cut!, Michael Almaz’s play about the fictional 1920s Hollywood director Posterkrantz. Combining egomaniacal cruelty to the “boys & beauts” of his cast with unctuous sycophancy before the movie company producers, the character is a darkly hilarious monster. 

In truth, Almaz’s script is a rather conventional combination of biographical history and a larger than life characterisatiom. Yet, whether he is claiming to have pimped for the great producer Irving Thalberg or lapsing into anti- Semitism when cursing Samuel Goldwyn, Watt is wonderfully and horribly cartoonish.

4th – 28th August (excluding Wednesday 16th)
Hill Street Theatre, Venue 41
7.05pm (1 hour)

BOX OFFICES:
Hill Street: 0131 226 6522
Fringe: 0131 226 0000
Tickets £8 (£6 concessions)