Welcome to Edinburgh (and hold on to your hat)!

The Edinburgh Fringe Festival is the 61 year old bastard child of the city’s “official” International Festival. Hoping to rebuild post-WWII Europe through arts and culture, the festival attracted uninvited artistic talent hoping to benefit from the crowds. The name is attributed to Scottish playwright Robert Kemp who in 1948 observed the beginning birth pangs, “Round the fringe of official Festival drama, there seems to be more private enterprise than before … I am afraid some of us are not going to be at home during the evenings!”

The Edinburgh Fringe is the largest arts lollapalooza in the world. For three weeks every August since 1947, companies, individuals, and productions from around the world gather at venues across the city to perform in musicals, comedies, dramas, children’s shows, adult only shows, and spectacles of all nature. It is a grab-bag of delight and like Harry Potter Bertie Bott’s jelly beans, one never knows if you’ve just bought tickets to Green Apple or Earwax. This year’s Fringe has 2,050 shows, 250 venues, 18,626 performers and will generate more then last year’s £75 million for the Scottish economy.

At first glance, Edinburgh may appear grey, bleak, and abreast with scarves (punctuated by the occasional boa) in what should rightly be the dog-days of summer. Paper-thin summer dresses giggle from their suitcase and mock my inability to pack---I kick myself both in punishment and to harness the warming powers of friction. New Hampshire natives and Dartmouth students alike may sympathize with the humble gratitude that accompanies sunshine. I feel betrayed by my delusion of a Scottish tropical paradise; I had apparently drawn the wrong conclusions about a country where even the men wear skirts, I now know it’s not just the breeze they’re after.

Except for the occasional curses that still litter my thoughts on Scotland’s weather, I have developed a serious crush on this city. Like a coy lover in the early stages of a romance, Edinburgh has only shown me its best sides. The city is a carnival of color and as I roam its stoned streets, my neck swivels from astronauts, to opera-singing strumpets, to men in rabbit suits, and even the occasional near-nudist. Everyone is singing their own praises, pushing a rushed program into your hands, and promising that your life will never be the same, the critics gave it 4 stars, you won’t regret it, oh won’t you come?

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Rating System

Stars are staples of any review.

Though it seems entirely arbitrary to codify my feelings in terms of four heavenly bodies, I cannot think of any alternative that will justify the breaking of such a long-standing tradition…and I assure you, I have tried:

Thumbs are even more limited given that I only have two of them (assigning any more than two, up or down, to plays would be downright disingenuous);

Purple plums are obscure and may be mistaken for a rip-off from rottentomatoes.com (though everyone knows the two are entirely different things);

And percents seem impractical because of the confusion of what a passing mark would be….I have lived entirely too long under American grade-inflation and do not want to inflict my understanding that a B (80-89%) is for “Bad” on readers.

Instead I will stick with dependable, stalwart stars. They have been kid-tested, mother-approved, and the bottom line is that I am just not that creative.

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THEATER REVIEW- Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players: The Complicated Life

In bright tights, sparkling face paint, hoop earrings, and a modest brown suit fed-exed exclusively from the 1970’s, the Trachtenburg family could easily find a home in any one of Wes Anderson’s films. Mom Tina, dad Jason, and their 14-year old daughter Rachel tour America collecting discarded slideshows; these pictures are then set to perky pop-rock ditties that lightheartedly describe, mock, and commemorate the average Joe’s and Jane’s of Middle America (also the name of their CD).

The absurdity in the everyday photographs (brushing one’s teeth, barbequing, going hunting, sitting on the couch) is accented by its larger-than-life display and accompanying soundtrack. The lyrics avoid being preachy instead opting for the childishly obvious, “Won’t you try some of my barbeque? This is what happens when you’ve had a few....Look at me! Look at me! Look at meeee!” Tina is in charge of the projector, Jason sings and plays the piano, and Rachel accompanies her father on the drums and smiles at the audience. In between sets, Jason rambles. His classically awkward musings expound on everything from a conviction that one day most top-ten bands will be slideshow bands, to a guarantee that the audience is allowed to waste his time after the show. Some of the technical difficulties in this early staging will hopefully be worked out throughout the run of the festival--- but even with the sound and projector problems, the on-stage dynamics make obvious that the family is just as amused with each other as we are.

The billing describes the set as a “real situation comedy, literally and figuratively” taking place in their apartment. “Are they for real?” I heard someone whisper behind me during the show, “They just can’t be real!”

The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players is a three-ring circus of self-referential voyeurism, and though I liked the show, I had trouble figuring out exactly what or who was on display.

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THEATER REVIEW- Famished

Famished is a British, musical zombie farce, in which the undead walk the streets of London, but everyone still makes it back in time for tea. The characters are intentionally ridiculous: two evil geniuses bent on conquering the world a la “Pinky and the Brain,” a colonel with an enormous mustache, his fickle daughter, and an overly-devoted wife. The songs are passably entertaining (“Why can’t the English teach their empire how to kneel?”) though admittedly flat, no one here is putting out a solo CD anytime soon. I would have enjoyed the entire production more if a) I knew someone in the show or b) the performers were young enough to humor with enthusiastic applause. Overall a decent though amateurish effort, one I will probably forget by morning.

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