New releases from Public Image Ltd, William Basinski, and John Luther Adams
Solaris
Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh
AS NEWS breaks that astronomers have discovered the new watery planet K2-18b, this co-production by the Lyceum and Melbourne's Malthouse Theatre bring us the story of scientists sent to investigate just such a planet and how it all goes wrong.
The ocean on Solaris is sentient and it toys with the spacemen by sending them replicants designed by their own repressed memories. The question is — are the scientists mad, or is this the way an alien might choose to make contact?
Writer David Grieg and director Matthew Lutton have created a compelling adaptation of Stanislaw Lem’s 1961 sci-fi classic novel, later given cinematic life in versions by Andrei Tarkovsky and Steven Soderbegh.
GORDON PARSONS is intrigued by a biography of the Marxist intellectual and author, made from the point of view of his son
JOHN GREEN’s palate is tickled by useful information leavened by amusing and unusual anecdotes, incidental gossip and scare stories
MARIA DUARTE and ANGUS REID review Friendship, Four Letters of Love, Tin Soldier and The Ballad of Suzanne Cesaire
GORDON PARSONS is disappointed by an unsubtle production of this comedy of upper middle class infidelity



