Walking the Fringe

3. America

Type: 4 drama/3 comedy-drama;  4 devised/3 written; 5 topical/2 personal; 4 documentary or inspired by real events;  

--Song I just made up

A Long Distance Affair is quite a trip. You’re lead down to shadowy basement cum internet cafe, where you take part in three one-to-one solo playlets via Skype with performers from around the world. There are 6 possible performances per day, and 18 in total. You pick where you start, but not who you speak to or even who YOU are: I was psychologist to a suicidal bridesmaid, past-life lover of a New York City romantic, and sole witness to the ghost of a Mexican man killed by a drug cartel. Intimate and pleasantly uncomfortable, each performance invites the viewer in, albeit to a greater or lesser extent. Ideas of materiality, specifically what’s imagined and real, ran through each play. At the end, a guide took us outside, gave us a present from our performers (a torn cheque from the bridesmaid) and invited us to write them a postcard. The experience was thought-provoking: clearly there’s a lot of potential for Skype as a medium for performance. It retains the liveness of in-person theater but opens up new cinematic, design, and storytelling possibilities. The best of the playlets was the ghost, who moved sinuously in and out of frame and, finding peace in the end, moved the camera delicately up into the light.

ME. Maybe you were giving him a gift by accepting it.

5 In loving memory for Fred or George...I don't remember who died / I open at the close

In the Assembly Courtyard, getting increasingly hysterical discussing animal mating habits. Best story, though not strictly about animals mating: Once a monkey at the zoo watched my mother while it wanked." Literally running late to a show I didn't have a ticket for -- getting there, getting the ticket, getting in the queue. And then the ticket taker says, "Didn't you do a solo show about the two towers? Really enjoyed that. Great characters."

Claire, a priest, is coping with traumatic events. A disturbed young man has shot up the community center where she runs a multi-cultural choir and she’s haunted by the question of the killer’s motivations Inspired by the Breivik shootings in Norway, but fictionalized and set in the UK, we follow Claire on her quest to understand. Most of the other characters, some recurring (Claire’s girlfriend, her therapist, the shooter), some one-offs (The Father, The Politician, The Friend) are played by another actor. Additionally, a real English community choir provides music, bit parts, and the broader responses of the public. In the end, it’s their presence that gives a gripping but occasionally dry play it’s biggest emotional punch, providing a real-life example of the hope to which Claire and the play aspire: that what we have in common in more important than how we are different. Having done a show about a traumatic event, September 11th, I was intrigued by how The Events would handle a similarly complex, potent topic. A collage held together by the central character’s through-line, the play deftly and sometimes humorously presents the complex reactions and multiple points of view such as a event provokes, both for individuals and in society at large. While it’s careful not to present one answer, you leave satisfied and, if not uplifted, cautiously hopeful.

What solo work have you seen that doesn’t fit into the list above?*

Andrea Dworkin: radical feminist. Alan Bissett: man. One stage. Bissett plays himself, telling stories from his own life, with a penis, and Dworkin, one of the most controversial women in history, who has a few things to say to him. Expect laughter, Led Zeppelin and live reconditioning of a man who’s had it too easy. Until now. 'Brilliant stuff ... audience were literally shouting with laughter.’ **** (Joyce McMillan, Scotsman on Bissett’s The Moira Monologues). 'He has real presence as a performer; his writing glitters with unusual erudition and deft wit.’ **** (Independent on The Red Hourglass).

At the end of the day, emptying my pockets of all the flyers you've been handed -- enough to make a small fire.

(Overheard)

Mmm...PIE.

What I did at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival Generation 9-11: So Far/So Close Chris Wolfe "Opening Scenes"