Anyway, enough of the false dichotomy set up by fault lines that run through American political thinking, and onto the Fringe. It's time for another top three, or top five, or top twenty. Let's see how long I go before I decide that's enough...
Originally, this list was going to be about religion in the Fringe. However, I have a really good rant about the misuse of the word planned, so here we have the hit parade of plays about women. Joyce MacMillan mentioned something about a male dominated theatre community during the CATS awards on Sunday, and there was some fuss about the Lyceum's autumn season.
I am going for positive discrimination - and yes, I am slightly embarrassed about that bloke who had the topless ladies in his video. Let's call this the feminist countdown.
In at number twenty, we have Rouse Ye Women - no better entry for a feminist list. The name's good enough, but so's the plot. In 1910, the women of Cradley Heath went on strike, and their action led to the first ever minimum wage. The company behind it, and then we danced, promise that they are influenced by Pina Bausch - which gets me in.
Besides, these historical plays that are really about politics (both gender and socialist in this case) are always more intriguing than the more obvious response to recent events ones. The distance between event and recreation gives the subject space to become more abstract and, ahem, universal.
C aquila, Roman Eagle Lodge
1 to 17 August 2013
Number nineteen in the patronisingly entitled 'one for the ladies' hit parade is Rosie Wilby's Is Monogamy Dead? I might be out of my depth here - I think Wilby is a comedian - but her press release frames the show as a riposte to something Alain Botton said. Wilby seems to have been doing plenty of research to answer her question (including on-line surveys, trying to have sexy times in saunas), and I'd trust her conclusions more than Botton's. Baillie Room, Assembly Hall
1-25 Aug (not 12) at 17.15
 |
| MORGAN LLOYD MALCOLM |
Rouse Ye Women has an all female cast, and Rosie Wilby is all woman, so I am disappointed that number seventeen has got a man in it. Happy Never After is a two hander about a man and a woman hoping that love and laughs are enough. They probably should have asked Wilby for advice.
Still, Happy was written by Hannah Rodger, formerly one of the Old Vic's New Voices. She is confronting me with the problem of my fatuous positive discrimination: her writing is strong enough to get into any number of top fives style lists (new writing, sex comedy, whatever).
THE PLEASANCE COURTYARD THEATRE, EDINBURGH
31 JULY – MONDAY 26 AUGUST 2013
Moving swiftly on before I notice that she has a male director (he was involved in the musical Maltida, so he must have some skills), and my entire foundation crumbles, shooting in at number sixteen is You Once
Said Yes, written
by Morgan Lloyd Malcolm and Katie Lyons and directed
by Mimi Poskitt. It is part of the British Council showcase, and the show won a Total Theatre Award in 2011 (which means it is right back in my comfort zone - experimental and challenging).
The press release doesn't give much away, apart from warning potential audience members to wear comfortable shoes. The company behind this, Look Left Look
Right, is all about site-specific theatre interactive theatre... I don't really care what it is about, I am already buying it. Look, it's a one-to-one piece.
Underbelly Cowgate, Edinburgh: August 12th- 26th
Show involves walking, please dress appropriately and wear comfortable shoes.
Age:
16+
Times:
one person per show time: 12:30, 12:40, 12:50, 13:00, 13:10, 13:20, 13:30, 13:40,
13:50, 14:00, 14:10, 14:20, 14:30, 14:40, 14:50, 15:00, 15:10, 15:20
And on that note, over to the adverts for a few words, while I think about how I can continue an all female countdown and lend it any reason beyond tokenism.
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