The 42nd Floor
K Brian Neel @ Uni Cinema
10:00pm, Thu 28 Feb 2002
Score: 10
Short Review: Precision Excellence
The second of K Brian Neel’s solo performances this Fringe (the other being Double Climax), this play, whilst not being the topsy-turvy character piece the previous show was, is still a technical masterpiece.
Scooting between the ancestor of a great cat polisher (who begins the performance seated in the middle of the audience), a time-travelling orphan, and a man forseeing his own suicide, Neel performs with a level of precision that is just sublime – the time travel sequences are so wonderfully reproduced, you’d swear that you’d undergone time travel yourself.
At some point during the performance, one of the characters mutters “I’m tired, but I’m alive”. This is a wonderful description of how this show makes you feel – the mental twists and turns (especially of the time-travel variety) continually stress one’s mind, but at the end of the performance you are of the opinion that it has definitely been worth it.