FRINGE FESTIVAL EDIMBURGO THE SCOTSMAN The Scotsman, 23 August 1996 Delitti Esemplari Il Canovaccio, Demarco Foundation Theatre **** The title means "Exemplary Crimes", the play is an hour-long adaptation by Gaetano Marino of some brief sketches by the Spanish writer, Max Aub, and the company is based in Sardinia. If that combination is not sufficiently international, the subject matter portrays that casual violence provoked by trivial incidents which is now a world wide phenomenon. The figures who people Aub's imagination include a man moved to murder by irritation over the noise made by another stirring his drink too vigorously, a teacher who hangs an unruly pupil in the playground or a secretary who does away with an unusually fastidious boss. "To kill is like drinking a glass of water," one of the characters proclaims. These incidents are conveyed with the minimum of words and fuss by Marino, an exceptional actor, who creates associations and images which recall Goya's late works. He. remains seated in a permanent penumbra at a low table with a single bulb which throws menacing shadows ali around, laughing wildly, cackling like a mad man or, even more powerfully, talking with calm lucidity while recounting events which, at his hands, no longer have that nihilistic nonchalance Aub conferred on them. Joseph Farrell Ends tomorrow