Number Games

Five shows I just made-up, but now want to see performed at the Fringe:

1. A lonely hooker gets a pet crab who turns out to be the reincarnation Shakespeare. He does not approve of her night job and they fight bitterly until she gets tired of debating her morals and cooks him.



2. A scowling kid doesn’t believe his mother when she tells him that his face is bound to stay that way. When he gets sick, she feels badly for lying. At some point, there is a picnic, a bear, and a horribly contorted permanent freeze-frame of a scream.



3. A condensed version of the Trojan War in which everyone is a gay, tap dancing chicken.



4. Scientists find out that copious amounts of alcohol actually do make you smarter and everyone is forced to apologize for having doubted me.



5. A theatrical cross between Ten Things I Hate About You and Snakes on a Plane.
   

Four common ways in which people try to get you to part with money:

Shame

“Tippers make better lovers”

Guilt

“Homeless with two hungry kids”

Humor

“Out-of-work Ninja”

Camaraderie

“I’m just like you…except that you have money”

Three things that clearly deserve their very own festival:

Ice Cream

Is Dipping Dots really the Ice Cream of the future? Do they survey fish when they make Phish Food? Do they know that the word is spelled wrong? Is it supposed to be an acronym? What’s up with astronaut ice cream?

Mullets

If it’s all business in the front and party in the back, what happens when mullets turn sideways? Is the illusion ruined? How does the community feel about their commonly mocked position in pop-culture reference?

Carnies

.



I want to know who the bearded woman is dating

Two Scottish proverbs I plan to insert into future conversations:

A hungry man smells meat far.

Ye'll sleep yer brains inta train oil.





One fabulous perk to seeing theater by yourself:

You will always get a great seat, even if you’re late. This is because many couples are uncomfortable sitting directly next to other couples and they usually leave a seat in between. To them, casual shoulder-to-shoulder closeness feels dangerously like swinging. But don’t worry--- since everybody loves a threesome, that third row center seat is all yours.

While some people count sheep, I prefer to get a little bit more creative with my number games. Does anyone else have ideas for lists?

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Mo Money Mo Problems

A long, long time ago, in the days when all marriages were happy, kids respected their elders, and students walked to school uphill both ways, Fringe tickets were dirt cheap. One could see any show for less than 3 quid; even with a schedule of 6 shows in one day, festival goers would still have enough money left over for some color-me-bland fish ’n’ chips. But with women’s rights, the advent of hip-hop, and decreasing family values… things have changed (and not for the better, please reference the failed back-to-the-kitchen movement).

Ticket prices have been climbing steadily for the past couple of years, and average prices now hover around £8-£10 pounds, with many shows even soaring to the £15 pound range. The days of reasonable affordability, theater “sampling,” and fringe overdose, seems to have been replaced with conservative penny pinching selectivity. Couple that with the decreasing value of the American dollar (currently at 2.183 dollars/pound), and many theater lovers have been forced to sell their kidneys and/or children on E-bay (the latter being a nicer way of saying “mini-kidneys”).

There are some rebels who operate on the outdated flower-child notion of “free.” Peter Buckley Hill’s Free Fringe and the competing Laughing Horse Free Festival, both offer tens of dozens of shows at no charge (the very definition of “free”) in 10 different venues across the city. Last year the two promoters had joined forces, but this year split due to highly controversial (and well publicized) acrimony. See? Divorce, everyone’s doing it.

The problem is a complex multilayered little onion which is the only ingredient used to cook up shows like “Che Guevara on the Fringe” (out of oppression comes art) and their routine of reminiscing, forecasting and enthusiastically offering a very modest proposal like, say, a violent revolution?

The problems, debated vigorously in pubs across the city, are as follows:

Too big

The festival offers an absurd amount of shows (2,050) and has now outgrown its capacity to fill seats. The theatergoing population is thinned out to below breaking-even numbers by the sheer amount of options.

Too expensive

Tickets are dear enough to be “out-of-reach” for many theatergoers, but often times, it’s not the performers who are pocketing the money. Venues, with their own profit margin agenda, are charging up front booking fees which desperate companies are trying to recoup in ticket prices. No one is sure who is duping whom, and every bushy tailed amateur is told the fabled fairytale of how Edinburgh is paved with five-star reviews made out of gold…Scotland’s “capital” is the place to make it.

Too commercial

The Smirnoff sponsored Underbelly is one example of the Evil Empire (note how they try to legitimize their street-cred by insisting that their walls are "dilapidated" and "crumbling") . It has expanded from 2000 to three venues, 140 shows, and their ‘McFringe’ approach to making money (::gasp::) is problematic for smaller venues that are, in the cliché story of corner mom ‘n’ pop shops, slowly pushed out of business. The other type of commercialization involves the types of show that the Fringe is hosting. With big-name draws like Ricky Gervais charging £37.50 for his show at the thousand-seat Castle, first-time theater companies and performers are marginalized out of the very festival that had promised to give them a chance.

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THEATER REVIEW- Che Guevara on the Fringe - Evonne Keron Strikes Back

“Che Guevera on the Fringe: Evonne Keron strikes back” is a strange brew offering and one of the 320 or so odd shows part of the Free Festival/Fringe movement. Though 90% of the free program is typically composed of start-up-stand-ups, this particular three-man (and one was a woman) variety show is a staple of the fringe. Already in its third year incarnation, it combines adapted musical numbers from Evita, video footage, and sci-fi absurdity to mock the rising costs and commercialization of the Fringe. We, the audience were proudly thrifty (or rather, not so proudly poor, comrade), and most crowded onto the stained bar-room floor with an insider’s glee (Look, look, we’re part of the movement!). What was at best a delivery on the program’s promise of a “half-arsed” plotline, the jokes were enthusiastically flat, though played to people who were already in the mood to laugh at the insane shtick and by those who themselves couldn’t stop cracking up. Wigs, dresses, Darth Vader mask, fake beards, traveling through space by twirling, death by flyering, liberally sprinkled in with Marxist commentary and Ricky Gervais jabs.

The best part of the show was far and away the walking tour that followed the indoor performance, when everyone rowdily piled out of the Green Room, and onto the streets around Cowgate. Led by comedian Kieran Butler on megaphone and Austin Low flanking the back with a red Che flag, the tour included colourful fringe-politics commentary and a series of dance exercise which you can see in the above video; we are practicing sting-like-a-butterfly footwork while expressing the cynical eye-opening disappointment that the Fringe is for some poor tourists and even poorer tourists, “this-is-not-what-I-thought-it-would-be!” Judging by our ragged crew of hippies, it was preaching to the choir.

We actually took the gag to a ticket line in which we united in a chorus of “What do we want? Free tickets! When do we want them? Now” only to be met with unsympathetic blinking and blank expressions (perhaps the clone army stories are true?).

More "undercover" pictures from both the show and the revolution are here.

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