Painless

There. Just there. I have never considered suicide seriously and, as Camus said, that is the mark of a trivial man. Only by acknowledging the limitations of human freedom - that we are born not at our own command and live at the whims of other forces, known and unknown - is a moment of freedom possible. In the corrupted words of William Burroughs, in the time when a man recognises that he is about to die, then he is immortal.

Teatr ZAR deserve applause, a star rating, the standing ovation, the encomiums and receptions - the feast laid out for them, a table groaning with red wine and shattered glass, rich foods awaits as they sneak away, into the rain and leave behind the hollow clapping of an audience. There. Just there.

Caesarian Section. Essays on Suicide, supported by heavy struts of solid song, howls and rages and even laughs on foundations cast in death and the thoughts of death, the vignettes of disappointed love and frantic sensual drumming. There, just there, above the heart, their voices rise and harmonise like heavenly choirs - the cliché seems set to take hold but like the polyphony there are levels of emotion, the higher notes anguished, the lower echo out the stability of the tradition. The stage was made for those whom the church was not enough.

Alone, two hours of more later, the hum of the air conditioning above me and the world outside the building in silence - or at least, I cannot hear the warm conversations of the Summerhall night - I take snatches of hot Korean food, sip coffee and try to retain the mood that was left behind when ZAR escaped the theatre. In my head, Dylan snarls, "sometimes even the President of the United States must stand naked" and I replay that moment when he sings to Donovan... "look at yonder orphan with his gun..."

There. The day begins in sunshine and ends in rain: The Traverse after breakfast and Rob Drummond saunters on stage. The audience know he will perform the most deadly trick in magic, The Bullet Catch, and he wanders around a variety of shticks and stunts, befriends one man before asking him to shot him in the face.

My day has asked me about the nature of suicide, and how it might be the only way to determine freedom. In the early evening, murderous rain clamouring against the roof, ZAR are demanding. Just there. Not the cheap participation of pantomime, instead they want attention, silence, a willingness to embrace the horrific sequences of despair. Rob Drummond makes eye contact with his audience, appears to read their minds.

No tardy celebrations of the post-modern here... the Fringe is filled with worthy souls who recognise the potential of this age, the age of information and juxtaposition. Here's a necessary freedom, to match and mix, to mismatch and fix, to reconfigure Shakespeare to swing or hip-hop, the spoken word lilting over a pounding beat... those ancient questions won't go away, the quest for meaning, Rob Drummond reflects on his father's ministry (his work forever becomes a tale of the Christ who does not rise), The Stranger forever caught on that baking hot beach, shooting a human who is never named but ever just "an arab."

If meaning is up for grabs and everything is possible, can rolling out eighteen scenes in a large black tent to the sound of two cellos, an accordion, a violin, the drum and the voice, the holy voices recant this modern age and instil a soft, silent point around which the world can ever revolve again?

More coffee. Just there. Outside a festival filled with laughter and the memory of a time when a therapist looked at me.

"Have you ever thought that the jokes are just a defence mechanism?"

ZAR do not speak (a quotation from the programme notes "we had no language between us. Only words") only run and fall, run their arms through a river of broken glass, the metaphorical falls into the literal. Here's a single light on a single body. Then the woman tries to remove her straps, only to be trapped by the repetitive gestures, fast and more hysterical and the drum hammers, the shrillness of the song and saw is damning...

Only fragments. It begins in darkness and the smash of glass. It ends in a face, leaning backwards, mouth open. Rob Drummond comments that it is a fact: if the beginning of a sequence is predetermined, there can be no freedom within that sequence. Suicide is in both works, a symbol of freedom, perhaps, and polished so brightly that is becomes freedom. Just there.

Caesarian Section, Summerhall, 15- 20 August

Bullet Catch, Traverse, 3-26 August