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(Finally) The Fringe
Sep. 6th, 2007 08:06 pmIt's a frustrating thing: it often happens that when something interesting or exciting has happened in my life, I get all full of narrative and want to write about it--but then I am busy and have to put it off, and when I finally get the time to write them down, the moment has passed and all my clever phrases and analogies have leaked away. I am dithering over my keyboard, wondering whether it would be better to write a bland and mediocre description of the Fringe, or leave my impressions to wither away in the obscurity of my memory.
...but was it ever really a question? The above paragraph is mostly just an excuse for this entry, if it is not as interesting as perhaps it could have been.
To the Americans of my acquaintance: The Fringe is one of the many simultaneous festivals that happen in Edinburgh every August. It's a collection of a couple thousand different shows, mostly independent, accompanied and (I assume) partially facilitated by the city closing off cars from the Royal Mile, which then fills with street performers and various other performers hawking and flyering for their shows. Stated so matter-of-factly, that doesn't sound too impressive. But let me repeat: there are two thousand shows going (though most of them only run for about a week or so, that's still a few hundred running on any given day), most of which send people out with flyers to try to lure the public into their audiences. Add to this a great many street performers and then the crowds themselves, and the Royal Mile is an impressive sight. The entire city is crowded as hell, but if one must have crowds, this is undoubtedly the best reason for it. This is just to give you some context.
I was staying in my friend Adam's flat, which like the city itself was accomodating several times its normal number of occupants. As far as I knew only he and one of his flatmates were there as real residents. A few others were staying more long-term, for the whole summer, but the living room floor accomodated a shifting and varied population of student drifters, mostly from St Andrews. I slept under the piano.
I think I spent three days there altogether. The first day I spent drifting like a leaf around the streets, collecting fliers and taking in the sights, and generally getting a bit overwhelmed by the whole thing. Someone handed me a flier for a free show but I got lost trying to find it, and on impulse went to see the intriguingly titled ( Escaping Hamlet ).
I saw a few more shows. Three, 'Oleanna', 'Twelfth Night' and 'True West', were by St Andreans, and I'd seen the former two in St Andrews. It was interesting seeing the changes they'd made between the two runs. There was a free show at the Forest Cafe, a trio of interwoven monologues whose name escapes me (something about a lime tree). There was a cutesy nationalistic musical, 'The Bonnet Blue', that I saw with Laila and her friend. There was even The Bacchae, a proper International Festival show, which I'd seen with my Aunt Monet the week before. But by far the best thing I saw was a play called Melancholia, a haunting anti-war play put on by a group called the Latino Theater Company, all the way from Los Angeles.
Okay, I know it's cliché to call a play 'haunting'. It's about as meaningful as saying that it was 'moving' or 'powerful'. But it was. It was all of those things. It actually made me cry--yes, me, an incorrigible cynic. Yeah, it was that good. Now, I know some of you are going to point out that the capacity to make me cry does not necessarily indicate the quality of a show.I also cried at 'The Notebook' (I think I was kind of hormonal at the time). But my point stands: this show was fucking brilliant.
( Read more... )
...but was it ever really a question? The above paragraph is mostly just an excuse for this entry, if it is not as interesting as perhaps it could have been.
To the Americans of my acquaintance: The Fringe is one of the many simultaneous festivals that happen in Edinburgh every August. It's a collection of a couple thousand different shows, mostly independent, accompanied and (I assume) partially facilitated by the city closing off cars from the Royal Mile, which then fills with street performers and various other performers hawking and flyering for their shows. Stated so matter-of-factly, that doesn't sound too impressive. But let me repeat: there are two thousand shows going (though most of them only run for about a week or so, that's still a few hundred running on any given day), most of which send people out with flyers to try to lure the public into their audiences. Add to this a great many street performers and then the crowds themselves, and the Royal Mile is an impressive sight. The entire city is crowded as hell, but if one must have crowds, this is undoubtedly the best reason for it. This is just to give you some context.
I was staying in my friend Adam's flat, which like the city itself was accomodating several times its normal number of occupants. As far as I knew only he and one of his flatmates were there as real residents. A few others were staying more long-term, for the whole summer, but the living room floor accomodated a shifting and varied population of student drifters, mostly from St Andrews. I slept under the piano.
I think I spent three days there altogether. The first day I spent drifting like a leaf around the streets, collecting fliers and taking in the sights, and generally getting a bit overwhelmed by the whole thing. Someone handed me a flier for a free show but I got lost trying to find it, and on impulse went to see the intriguingly titled ( Escaping Hamlet ).
I saw a few more shows. Three, 'Oleanna', 'Twelfth Night' and 'True West', were by St Andreans, and I'd seen the former two in St Andrews. It was interesting seeing the changes they'd made between the two runs. There was a free show at the Forest Cafe, a trio of interwoven monologues whose name escapes me (something about a lime tree). There was a cutesy nationalistic musical, 'The Bonnet Blue', that I saw with Laila and her friend. There was even The Bacchae, a proper International Festival show, which I'd seen with my Aunt Monet the week before. But by far the best thing I saw was a play called Melancholia, a haunting anti-war play put on by a group called the Latino Theater Company, all the way from Los Angeles.
Okay, I know it's cliché to call a play 'haunting'. It's about as meaningful as saying that it was 'moving' or 'powerful'. But it was. It was all of those things. It actually made me cry--yes, me, an incorrigible cynic. Yeah, it was that good. Now, I know some of you are going to point out that the capacity to make me cry does not necessarily indicate the quality of a show.
( Read more... )
