Our Nine Days at the
2016 Edinburgh Fringe Festival
For the third time, we
are visiting Edinburgh, explicitly to attend the world-famous grandfather of
all fringe festivals now popular around the globe. With over 3000 events in 464 venues for a
total of 50,000+ performances in three weeks, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival is
clearly the world’s largest performing arts festival. Drawing hundreds of thousands of visitors
from around the world, this Festival began in 1947 when eight theatre groups
showed up uninvited to the official Edinburgh International Festival.
Today, thousands of performers present to adoring,
oft-returning audiences a total of 141 cabaret shows; 184 children’s shows;
1176 stand-up comedy performances; 112 dance, physical theatre, and circus
events; 515 music performance of all types; 127 musicals and operas; 920 plays;
and 101 spoken word performances Streets are full of performers giving snippets
of their shows and handing out flyers by the hundreds in order to draw folks to
their stages. With over 1300
performances every day, the competition for butts in seats is real; and the
overall excitement of live performance is everywhere.
*******
2016 Edinburgh Fringe Show #1
How to Win Against
History
Seiriol Davies
Developed in Association with Ovalhouse and Arts Council ofEngland
The 5th Marquis of Anglesey, born in 1875, one of
the richest men on earth, was poised to inherit a virtual empire from his
wealthy, powerful family. However, in
his twenties he chose to spend money as if there were no tomorrows, which for a
man who died at 29, there were few. In
his brief life, this flamboyant transvestite turned a family chapel into a
theatre and starred himself in extravagant productions to which no one
came. At his death, he was penniless and
soon forgotten since his family burned all evidence of his very existence.
Seiriol Davies recreates the Marquis’ forgotten history in a
wild and quirky musical, How to Win
Against History. Along with Matthew
Blake and Dylan Townley, he brings the Marquis to full, glittering life in
songs full of pizzazz and pageantry, in a tawdry, slightly naughty sort of
way. From his days at military school in
Eton (recalled in high kicks and fun times with the boys in “Boots, Boots,
Boots”) to his conveniently arranged marriage with Lady Lillian in which
neither had any sexual expectations of the other (“This Is What It Looks Like
... A Real Couple”), the three actors sing in voices ranging from whispering
high falsettos to full-out diva blasting.
Lyrics often shoot out as fast and furious as bullets, and the pace is
sweat-producing and laugh-ensuring throughout (thanks to the direction of Alex
Swift).
Much to the probable chagrin of his surviving family, the Marquis now lives on in the full living color in his sparkling purple gown and in the flashy blinks of his mascaraed eyes.
Much to the probable chagrin of his surviving family, the Marquis now lives on in the full living color in his sparkling purple gown and in the flashy blinks of his mascaraed eyes.
Rating: 4 E
*******
2016 Edinburgh Fringe Show #2
My Eyes Went Dark
Matthew Wilkinson
107 Group in association with Cusack Projects LTD
What does losing one’s wife and two young children as two planes collide over a snowy Swiss forest do to a man? And what if that same man is the one who finds his daughter’s body after she has fallen 30,000 feet, sustaining only a scratch but not her life? Cal MacAnich gives a riveting performance in the Scottish premiere of Matthew Wilkinson’s My Eyes Went Dark, a time-jumping series of scenes that recount Russian architect Nicoli Kosonov’s journey through disbelieving shock, numbing grief, and slow-broiling anger – all leading to a blind quest for justice and if not justice, revenge.
Along the way, over a dozen girls and women of all ages
comfort, counsel, confront, challenge, and even chastise him – including the
wife and the daughter of the air controller who somehow failed to halt the
accidental collision of two planes.
Thusitha Jayasundera brilliantly, movingly, and convincingly transitions
in age, nationality, dialect, and demeanor to embody those who push and pull
Nicoli through his torture toward an uncertain end.
As scenes and times flip back and forth on a blank stage
with only two chairs in this scaled-down, Fringe production, there are times
when it becomes difficult to discern what is exactly happening, in what order,
and why. At the same time, the
playwright has directed his own production in such a way to retain tension and
attention and is aided greatly by excellent lighting effects by Elliot Griggs
and sound by Max Papperheim – both of which help often to clarify what the bare
stage does not share.
With a larger stage production, this Off West End awarding
winning play is one that definitely merits scrutiny by an American company.
Rating: 4 E
*******
2016 Edinburgh Fringe Show #3
The Red Shed
Mark Thomas
Lakin McCarthy in association with West Yorkshire Playhouse
The 50th anniversary of The Red Shed of
Wakefield, Yorkshire approaches. The 47’
X 18’ pub, residing in the shadows of the larger and notoriously conservative
Tory Club, has a rich history as a meeting and organization venue for
unionists, socialists, communists, feminists, gays, and many other groups with
a leftist leaning. Famed British TV and
club comedian, journalist, and actor, Mark Thomas, relates in his world
premiere of The Red Shed his own
thirty-year association with this institution for economic and social justice
and equality.
To help The Red Shed celebrate its half century, Thomas sets
out on a quest to prove to his disbelieving colleagues of the pub a story he
had retold many times of the ’84-’85 miners strike – but one no one else can
recall happening. While he was away at a
school nearby, he witnessed the failed strikers heading back to the mines and
being bolstered by school children singing a union anthem as the miners trudged
by, “Solidarity forever, for the union together is strong.” Master story teller Thomas rolls off a tale
of his search for a fellow witness or better yet, one of the children; and
along the way, he introduces to us several dozen locals, employing an amazing
array of accents, voices, and personalities.
Joining him in the telling are six volunteers from the
audience who, at his prompting and the audience’s delight, don the Polaroid
portrait heads of the story’s main characters in order to help act out
organizing meetings, car trips to possible sites where the school could have
been, and interviews with townspeople who might remember that seminal day of
Thomas’ life. Even the audience becomes
background sound and songs for his story, enriching the telling for all.
In every way imaginable, Mark Thomas gives a tour de force
performance. Laying bare with no holes barred his deeply felt politics, his
prejudices, and his heart, Thomas blends humor with anger, convictions with
doubts, and truth with maybe just a couple of white lies. And he does so while forming his audience
into a momentary community that is eager to honor The Red Shed, the groups it
has and continues to support, and Mark Thomas as a performer par excellence.
Rating: 5 E
******
2016 Edinburgh Fringe Show #4
“Daffodils (A Play
with Songs)
Rochelle Bright
Two generations, a father and a son, fall in love with their
to-be wives by the same lake, lying on a field of daffodils. Idyllic beginnings have rocky journeys to
unhappy endings for both; but the son is definitely not in the mold of his
father, no matter how much he may be accused of being so.
The story of Eric, the eighteen-year-old son, and his
sixteen-year-old newly met girlfriend, Rose, is told by two barefooted actors
who stride alternately and together up their own carpeted paths to two lone
mikes. Supported by an excellent band of
three, there they turn the songs of a dozen New Zealand groups (Crowded House,
The Mint Chicks, The Senators, Th’Dudes, among others) into their story, from
first meeting to a bitter end.
In Clark Kent glasses and a smile as contagious as it is
wide, Todd Emerson easily and eagerly grabs the mike to rock out as that teen
in search of both love and adventure before ending up married, with kids, and
part of his dad’s office cleaning business.
His voice rings true whether his Eric croons ballads in soft falsetto or
knocks out hard, metallic sounds with raspy vocals.
Equally impressive in voice is Colleen Davis as Rose, a Goldilocks
blonde with lips redder than her namesake who sings with a rich deepness and
stellar clarity. At times, her voice
cuts to the core with its edge of intensity, only to back off into a softness
that can melt any heart.
Their story in prose and song is constantly supported by an
onstage band (Fen Ikner, Abraham Kunin, and Stephanie Brown), with Ms. Brown
also lending harmonic vocals with the two leads in some of the more beautiful
and moving numbers. The story itself is
inspired by true events, as told by the daughter, also Stephanie Brown, who
says upfront, “This is the story of my parents, and it is mostly true ...
except ...”
The twists and turns of love and life, of guilt and
misunderstanding, and of what is said and what left unsaid add up to a
bittersweet tale that is perhaps now one family’s sad recalling at their annual
reunions of love found and love somehow allowed to wane. Unfortunately, what is missing in the present
telling is any hint of why the son’s love journey and its demise follows that
of his father when Eric has in fact many chances to alter and correct the
course along the way.
Rating: 3 E
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