Yesterday we watched one of the many street performers, a man who played on five gallon plastic bins, as well as on damaged cybals, and "his mother's pots." He went around the audience playing on fences and various things in the environment. I held out my walking poles and he played on those. It reminded me of the only performance I remember from my visit here 55 years ago. That was a group called Stomp. I have never figured out if it is the same group that has become famous and played around the world. I thought it must be, but never saw a reference to the Fringe on their info. I'll have to check again with better resources now. I told the drummer. He was American but apparently travels the world making his living as a street performer. All the street performers made the same speech, saying this is their job and livelihood, and asking for donations if you liked the performance. They suggest 5 lbs, 10 if you are a family, and that they'd appreciate 20. We gave each one we saw 10. I asked the drummer where in the States he was from. He grew up in Queens. I told him that I grew up in the Bronx.
I hope you've enjoyed reading this. I write primarily for my own benefit. It's amazing how much I forget without rereading about it myself! But I am always happy when I know that others have read and enjoyed reading about our travelling adventures.
We saw a number of street performers over the days. There were singers, jugglers, fire eaters, other kinds of performers. I would guess most of them were from Britain, but can't say for sure. The first one we saw was an overweight man with a huge belly. He was very funny, Loring's favorite and maybe mine too. He had quite the repartee. He, and all the performers, recruited "volunteers" from the audience. He started with asking a man to hold the end of a rope stretched tight. He eventually got up to 8 men and it still wasn't clear if he was going to balance or do anything on it. Then he stripped down to a thong, making some lewd jokes while he sat on the rope. The Scottish sense of what is family friendly is obviously a little more lenient than ours. He also had a tennis racket, without strings, around his neck. Eventually he did balance on the rope, and finally pulled the racket down over his shoulders, torso, and legs, stepping out of it while still on the rope. It was impressive but the best part was his ongoing gags throughout the show. My other favorite was the last one we saw, yesterday. She was just setting up as we arrived. Her name was Steph. Not sure where she was from. There were several facets to her act. She had two members of the audience put her in a straightjacket and chains, and escaped within two minutes. She also had a puppet, and was a ventriloquest. She put masks on the same two volunteers, and then, throwing her voice again, had them sing and act silly, pumping the mouths on the masks open and closed with hoses attached to the masks. I had never seen a ventriloquist do anything like that. It was very clever and funny.
In all, we went to about ten paid performances over the five days. it's difficult to choose because there are a zillion choices.
Twice we went to shows based on someone at home's recommendation, and both were terrific. We first saw a one woman show called the Golden Hour. That was recommended by a friend of our friend Yvonne, who was in Edinbourgh and had seen it. Before the show a woman asked me how we'd heard about it, and I told her it was via a friend at home who'd heard about it from a friend at the Festival. She was impressed that word of mouth had traveled so far. Turns out it was the performer herself, not an usher as I'd thought. She was just great. It was about an educational theory in Scotland to detract free "golden" time from kids who had misbehaved or not done well, at the end of each week. It's an actual theory, created by a woman who discussed it on a video that was part of the show. The actor had experienced it herself in school,as had many in the audience. She had very briefly been a teaching assistant who sympathized with a kid who was kind of an outsider. She got fired after a short time at the school, and now works bringing different programs for children to schools(and doing a one person show, at least at the Fringe, and hopefully at other times as well. )
The other recommended show was also one-woman show, recommended by our sister-in-law Jill, who has heard the performer on a podcast they listen to. Her name is Ria Lina. She is a British actor of Filipino heritage, who has an American accent. (she lived in the US for some time.) She has written and performed several shows, this being the latest one. She talked about many things, including her heritage as an Asian woman, her marriage, children, and divorce. and the fact that she and her ex husband still live together, and how that works.
The other shows I picked mostly by reading descriptions and reviews. The first night, when we had just arrived, we went to a cabaret. We came in a bit late and took the last two seats. They had stopped collecting money. It was basically a burlesque show, hosted by a man who was not very funny. There were about five acts. All except one were drag queens who stripped down to tassels and not much else. The other was a thin young woman. One thing - I assumed they were all men, they were all pretty large and had masculine looking faces. But, they all had female breasts! Loring thought they were all women, because of that. I was puzzled; they looked pretty real, maybe had had top surgery to get them? I definitely do not understand the intricacies of drag. And in retrospect, the one attractive young woman may actually have been a man or trans man or non binary per w2son. In any case, we both thought the show was dreadful! Luckily, we hadn't paid anything for it.
It fascinates me how crucial it is in our society to identify people by gender, from the time a baby is born. We don't even have gender free language to use. Maybe the use of the word "they" as a singular form will eventually take hold in the general population but I doubt I will ever get comfortable using it. I wish there could be another new pronoun that didn't sound weird to older ears like mine.
For the other shows, I leaned toward choosing musicals. The first we chose was play, called How to Win Against History, based on a true story of a marquis in the 19th century who was gay, and chose to live his own life. The acting was great and the direction tight, with not a false moment. I have to look into the true story.
Then, another musical called Jaffa Cakes. I'd read a review from earlier in the festival. There are many many people reviewing various shows, newspaper reviewers from Scotland and abroad, and various individuals. You can only take one reviewer's opinions so far, since so much is a matter of individual taste. Speaking of taste, Jaffa Cakes was great. It is also based on a true story, a court case in the 1990's to determine if the popular Jaffa Cakes are a cake or a biscuit. A biscuit in Britain is what we call a cookie. The case mattered because biscuits are taxed and cakes are not. It's complicated. The show was very clever, with five actors playing multiple parts. People we talked to were surprised that we Americans weren't familiar with Jaffa Cakes. Apparently everyone in Scotland, and probably all of Great Britain, grows up with them. Of course, on the way back from the play to our apartment we had to stop to buy a package of Jaffa Cakes. I quite like them, Loring not so much. They have a slightly spongy base, an orange flavored center, and a chocolate top. I ate most of the package but still have a few in my backpack. They may not make it back to the US.
The show called Luigi caught my attention for two reasons: it had sold out audiences in SF, where it originated, and because the subject was three criminals who all had been in the same prison together, Diddy, Sam Bankman Fried, whose mother I'd gone to high school with, and Luigi Mangione, who shot and killed the health care CEO on the street in Manhattan. The play was controversial because some thought it gloried Luigi, the main subject of the play. The actors were four comedians who'd written the show together. They denied that they'd glorified him, ony wanted people to think about the fact that so many have. In any case, the show, in both of our opinions, was terrible. Too bad, because the concept was fascinating. But the script, and the acting too, was sophomoric.
We attended one show that was not part of the Fringe, but part of the original International Festival, which over the years has been superceded by the Fringe. That play is called Faustus in Africa. It's not a new play, it's over 30 years old, created and performed by the Handspring Puppet Theatre of South Africa. It had been highly reviewed. I had seen, over a decade ago, their much heralded play WarHorse, also performed by large puppets, at Lincoln Center in New York. This show was at the Lyceum Theater, a beautiful large theatre a little outside of the central Fringe, but still in walking distance from our apartment. The tickets were much more expensive than the Fringe shows, which are all an hour an all cost about $20. They were also hard to get. I got what I believe was the very last ticket for the last performance, before we left home. Our hope was that more tickets would be available close to the day of the performance. And indeed, a few were, including, amazingly, the one next to mine! So we were both able to go. Unfortunately, both of us were kind of bored by the play, and we both dozed off. The puppets themselves are very impressive, and it's wonderful to watch them with the puppeteers in view. But the play was very dry, we both thought. And the theatre was very warm, which didn't help. All the venues were too warm, and none have air conditioning. Scotland is almost never this warm, and so they aren't prepared for the heat. It was beautiful weather all the time we were there, but everyone local commented on how unusual it was.
The Fringe venues vary in size and are in all kinds of spots. Some hold only about thirty, others are much larger. For many, you have to go through a bar or restaurant and up a flight or stairs, or several. The shows are booked back to back so one audience has to exit for the next to enter, only about 10 minutes before the show. And the actors break down the sets themselves, immediately after they take their bows.
Yesterday morning was the only day we saw three shows. We are sure that many people do much more, but this worked out well for us. In between shows, we walked around, ate at retaurants or grabbed a pasty or croissant on the street, went home and took a nap, etc.
We started the day yesterday before noon with Truman, a one-man show depicting Truman Capote. The actor was great. A few days earlier someone had approached me at one of the beer gardens with a flyer for the show. I told him we already had tickets. I'm not sure he believed me. He said, "Oh ya do, do ya." In retrospect I think it was the actor himself. It was a small older man, unlike the majority of the flyer hander outers who are young. In any case, the actor was great. He greatly portrayed what I remember of Capote. I also am sure that I understood a lot of the references that nobody else in the audience did, like the Black and White Ball he created in New York in the 60s. (He did explain the references.) It was the combination of the New York setting and the time period, which much of the audience didn't live through. But many seemed to know at least who he was.
A couple of hours later, after a walk around town, we attended the 360 All Stars, in a large stadium-like theatre, the largest venue we'd attended other than to see Faustus at the Lyceum. It was a hip hop performance, consisting of two djs, one a drummer and the other a keyboardist, each up on a platform above the stage. They were both very good. The woman was terrific. She came down from the platform at a couple of points to rap and dance with the others. think she was from the US. The drummer was the creator and was, I believe, Scottish.
The other performers were four men, the all star champions of various competiions, each with his own specialty. They each performed individually and then together. One was a bicyclist, one did a hoop performance that was mesmerizing and graceful, one was a basketball artist who did various things including juggling, with four of them. And one was a floor dancer, who was from New York. The others were from different countries, one I think from the Netherlands, one from Hungary, and I believe one was Scottish. We found out afterwards there had been a fifth performer who had been injured in an earlier show. The rest of them had to rechoreograph and rehearse it to perform without him.The audience for this show was quite different from the others we attended, large and with many kids attending..
Our last show, yesterday night, was called Falling in Love with Mr. Dellormand. It was another I'd read positive reviews of. It was a campy musical with five performers. We'd gotten over our hesitation about sitting in the front row, which I'd still not do in a comedy or interractive show. In the small theatre, we were incredibly close to the actors. I don't think I 've ever sat nearly that close to performers. The show was described as a gothic musical. It was five actors, Mr. Dellormond being the owner of an isolated inn who invites the others to a party. The premise is that no one can help falling in love with Mr. Dellormond. It turns out that he is the Angel of Death, who kills all his victims with a kiss. The whole thing is very silly and campy, and all the characters are totally overdrawn. And they are all very good singers. One additional thing, the musical accompaniment is by a musician playing a theremin. an unusual instrument that is played without touching it. It has an appropriately eerie sound, and is played with gestures above it, which melds wonderfully with the rest of the performance.
The Festival was a great experience, despite the streets being crowded wherever we went. We knew they would be, and that's just a part of the event. And although the restaurants were also crowded, we never had a real problem finding a place, usually outdoors, where we wanted to be. There were a few times in the evening that places said they were finished serving food when we got there at about eight pm. which surprised us at a time when the streets were still crowded. But we always found someplace we liked after a couple of tries. We tried to eat Scottish foods as much as possible. My favorite may have been Cullen Skink, a soup with smoked haddock, potatoes, leeks, and cream. Richer than I'd eat at home, but I'm going to try to make a less rich version. Loring liked the baked meat pies, and had bangers and mash, traditional sausage and mashed potatoes. Many restaurants had delicous sides of vegetables of various sides. A couple of nights we just did that, for a tapas-like meal. We both tried the traditional haggis, which seems to be on every menu. It tastes ok but I couldn't get over the fact that it's all innards ground up, although if I didn't know it I am sure I would have liked it. They do make a vegetarian version with lentils, but we didn't try it. We tried fish and chips, because it seemed we ought to, not expecting much. But it was delicious, with a light batter resembling tempura. If we were there longer, I would have had it again. We didn't have black pudding or sausage, which is made from blood. Although I had had it many years ago and thought it was delicious when I didn't know what it was.
Last night we had our last meal at an outdoor cafe in the same square we'd eaten mussels at a different restaurant a few nights before. When we sat down we found out that the kitchen was closing but if we ordered right away they could do it. And they did. I had a fish stew that was described as Irish, but was similar to the traditional Scottish soup I'd had before. The couple next to us, who were Scottish, started talking to us and we chatted for quite a while. I'm not sure where they lived but they were camping in a tent outside town, for a week, and taking a bus in each day. They were very friendly, and we could understand much of what they said! Some people have accents so thick that it isn't easy for us to understand.
We're now on the plane home, about halfway there, and I think I've come to the end of this saga. Hopefully nothing eventful will happen before we get there.
It's been a great trip, to all three locations. And even if we didn't get to see much of the countryside without driving, I am perfectly happy to have visited the town of Pitclochry and the two cities. I expect many of the other locations, like Loch Ness and Loch Lomond, and the Harry Potter and Outlander locations, are touristed more than we prefer.
So I'll end here unless anything worth reporting on happens in the next couple of hours. It will be about 2pm when we arrive home, but 7pm on Scotland time.
