It's Just a Stage

So I’m back from the wee festival, folks.

After 4 hours in a theatre, this actually seemed like a fine idea for a pose.

Well, festivals, actually. There’s the Main Festival (heavyweight opera, theatre and ballet performances sold out months in advance). There’s the Book Festival; basically a month of workshops and talks led by authors who happen to be pottering about. You know, folk like Neil Gaiman (missed him by an hour) and Margaret Atwood (missed her by 2 days). There’s the International Festival, the Crafts Festival, the Scottish Heritage Festival, the…I forget. But, there’s also the glorious Fringe Festival: quite simply the biggest celebration of theatre, comedy and dance in the world. For a month, Edinburgh becomes one massive performance space, with shows happening in churches, bars, bus shelters…and the occasional theatre.

Reminds me of the flat, before we got the couch

So. A week in Edinburgh in August with real human company, you say?* How to spend the time? Did I:

• Take the grand historical tour of Edinburgh’s 1200 year old castle and 4500 listed buildings?
• Take a historical walking tour of the city that graced figures such as Charles Darwin, Robert Louis Stevenson and (cough) J.K. Rowling?
• Shop for kilts, Scotsmen and haggis?
• Or DID I go to four shows a day in a disgusting dramatic gorge?

Tricky call.

I know, I know. Disgraceful lack of concern for new experiences, a disgrace to the traveller, waste of a trip, could have been anywhere bla bla bla. Look. All I’m saying, mother, is that some of those building things have been around for a thousand years of monogamous love affair with the city, but performance art is but a fleeting mistress in the night (or morning, or afternoon). And I think we all know who wins the battle between the constancy of the craggy old bag and the seduction of the dimly-lit hussy. Besides, there’s something satisfyingly grand in travelleing all the way to a UNESCO-declared city of Literature and Culture, only to sit in a dark room watching a purple haired man in tights expose his nipples.

Speaking of travelling and cultures, I must just stop here to point out that Italians (bless them, they really don’t give a flying fagioli**) didn’t check my passport AT ALL at the airport – they waved me through, happily, and with just a touch of impatience (it must have been brunch time). The canny Scots, on the other hand, actually sent security to follow me to the gates in order to send me back to double scan my passport because “something did nae look right.” On a domestic flight.

Och aye.

As with most things, it’s a luck of the draw sort of thing. There are – literally – thousands of performances to see, 99% of which you’ll never have heard of. So, how do you choose? Personally, I went on several indicators, here listed in  order of emphasis:

1. The attractiveness of the cast
2. The attractiveness of the flier design
3. The attractiveness of the audience walking into the show
4. The newspaper reviews

No Caption Needed

Needless to say, with methodology as scientific as this, there were several moments where I passed the time in the play thinking about the seconds of my life that were irrecoverably ticking by, never to be regained for more fulfilling and pleasurable pastimes…like disembowelment.

Most notably, this latter category included our very first play, chosen before we’d really honed our attraction-based ratings technique. Essentially, it was an hour sketch of various people’s reactions to a traffic jam on the London ring road. It culminated in one self proclaimed ‘yummy mummy” smearing purple goo over her face, taking off her clothes and leaping balletically around the stage, watched by couples in plastic golf carts (am still unsure as to whether it was meant to be yoghurt, or if there was an alien subplot involving her demon spawn that I somehow missed).

Thankfully, there was also complete awesomeness – including probably the best piece of theatre I’ve ever seen – Gecko’s ‘The Overcoat’ (a sort of Medieval morality play meets modern movement piece. Which doesn’t make it sound as awesome as it was). Jason’s going to give it a spirited try to get it to open Out the Box in 2010. If it happens, trust me, you’re going to want to see it.

Japanese restaurants in Scotland leave much to be desired.

What else? I giggled at a slurping noodle tango between two Japanese performers in yellow raincoats, cringed at a devilishly funny clown troupe making love to a mannequin, sobbed as a Victorian lamplighter and his daughter drowned in a swirl of lights and sea foam and ooh-ed at a sunstruck dance between an aeroplane cog and a delirious pilot. As if that wasn’t surreal enough, Jason (whose awesome job as puppeter with Handspring makes him  our favourite festival friend EVER) snuck us into the final dress rehearsal at the oh-so-luxurious King’s Theatre for the completely sold out ‘Il Retorno’ – the Handspring puppet/William Kentridge collaboration opera based on Osysseus’ return. Afterwards, we took him out for a drink in the bar and ended up sitting next to William Kentridge too. In fact, come to think of it, I’ve run into every celebrity performer/artist I’ve ever seen in a bar. *** Surprise, surprise.

Ok, so you know it’s got to be dealt with here.  I’ve cunningly led you into it and now there’s no stopping me. Yes, it’s already had its own post, but nothing – nothing – can detract from the supreme awesomeness of The Rickman Encounter. Not even death by boredom of you, my lovely reader. I mean, AR began my actor fetish – he’s the original! Sharleen Spiteri knew what she was doing when she cast that music video, is all I’m saying. To make it more manageable for you, feel free to insert long, drawn out, sarcastic ‘ooooooh!’ s wherever you feel necessary.

Now indulge me. He did. [ooooooh]

So, Jon and I were just hanging out in the Traverse Theatre, when I saw this man head to the bar. My heart skipped a beat because, if I didn’t know better, I’d say it was…I took a second look anyway. That’s when I saw Rima Horton. I knew it’s Rima because I have previously spent large portions of agonised internet time pondering how she managed to pull that one off…and how similar skills might be applied to my life (I think it’s her fringe). Then my legs gave way.

Despite this momentary handicap, I decided to play it suave. Unfortunately, as anyone with even the slightest memory of the now-infamous Hives in the Bookshop incident will know, my hormone-fuelled excitement is sometimes too strong for mere physical containment. Anyway, I went over, dragging an extremely reluctant Jon in one hand and camera in the other. Exchange (abridged):

Sheer poetry.

Now, true he could have been nicer. In fact, Bec is undoubtedly correct in her character assessment that Mr Rickman is a “grumpy, rude doos.” But, I have to admit, that’s part of the draw. Yup. Had he engaged in light banter whilst gripping me in a bear hug for an impromptu bartop photo shoot like some twinkely-eyed, benevolent (yet strangely seductive) Saint Nick, I’d not only have been disappointed, I’d have probably lost all interest. I mean, it’s not his fault that he didn’t recognise our clear chemistry – he was distracted by Jon, whom he assumed to be my boyfriend (curses!). Anyway, I felt like a kid at Christmas, the absence of a lascivious Saint Nick nonewithstanding.

Still, bloody nervewracking, that Looking. You know.

The final word on this matter, though, must go to an ex-student of mine, who wrote to me in an earnest facebook congratulory message saying, “Meeting ones heroes is always special.”

Well yes, yes it is. And so is correct grammar. Maybe someday we’ll both get what we want.

*Well, mostly so. Jon flew out from SA to visit his sister and joined me for the week – perfect cost cutting and real training for conversation skills that have languished in Bournemouth’s month and a half long involuntary silence vow.

** this actually means ‘bean’, but we’re going with the base sounds. Besides, flying beans sound awesome.

*** Roger Taylor in Julep. William Kentridge in whatever the bar is next to the King’s Theatre and Alan Rickman in the Traverse Theatre bar. Aside from RT, who does very little for me, both of the others have a similar repulsive attraction for me. I maintain that AR is the sexiest man alive despite all horrified calls to the contrary, but WK is, I’ll admit, a slightly further out choice.

[Many thanks go to VDM, whose otherwise inimitable blogstyle has left me starstruck.]

- ”I cannot take responsibility for people’s fantasy. I can’t think about it, I can’t live with it and I won’t dwell on it.” – Alan Rickman