A Few Vile to Tough Tips

It's been a while since we spoke - between you studying and me trying to get back to University, it's been hectic, I guess. Anyway, I hope you'll get to the Fringe this year: where else can you see so much dramaturgy in so short a time?

Actually, according to Goffman, you just have to look out of the window. We are all doing it, all the time. Some people even think about it. 

But if you do get up here, I think these shows will tickle your fancy.

Alien Lullabies is part of the Made in Scotland selection. That means it has official approval by Creative Scotland. It sits more in music than theatre, at least officially. It strikes me that Fiona Soe Paing is one of those artists who is not easily defined: Lullabies is very theatrical, very science fiction and uncanny. It's this play between genres that I think you'll love. although I am pretty keen on the electronic music. If it didn't have such arresting visuals, I would be claiming this as post-visual theatre.

The Cabaret Farce is a no-brainer for you: I know that you love a

bit of burlesque-inspired performance, and this one is applying a theatrical dramaturgy to a vaudeville style entertainment. If their show is as cheeky as their answers in the dramaturgy database (and it amazes me how often my dull questions have been rescued by great answers), this will be fun and deep. They also have a connection with this Post-Modern Jukebox chap, and I like the idea of messing with the timeline of tunes and beats.

Pollyanna  deserves a special shout out from me, because they made an effort to fix some of my shoddy design. It is another cabaret show (I think I am getting a bit predictable here), but more in the confrontational, live art, tradition. I'm always pleased to see a touch of queer in my cabaret - it might be a Glasgow thing. We are pretty quick to label stuff queer here, and I do worry that it is losing its meaning... that said 'For me scripting and planning too far in advance would be that I wouldn't end up trying to eat my high heels in a nightie whilst singing along to an acapella version of The Smiths’This Charming Man' is exactly the kind of late night shenanigans I want. 

Especially after Leper and Chip. Not that I am not excited by what reads like a classic example of neo-brutalist theatre. But instead of getting their Sarah Kane on, they got a new script. 

I dig violent and provocative theatre. I am probably just jaded, and I don't like violence in real life. But theatre strikes me as just the place to work out some of the rougher bits of life, presenting experiences that won't resolve into my nice, middle-class fantasy vision of a liberal, loving society. 

Either that, or I get my cheapies off rough trade on the stage.

You can't go wrong with a Traverse show: it is a curated part of the Fringe, with a consistent quality. Some shows do bomb, it's true. But that is not because they are underfunded or under-rehearsed. It's because the dramaturgical intention sucks. However, A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing. It is based on a novel, and comes from a Irish tradition, which makes me guess that there will be an emphasis on language.

That is an odd way to put it. There will be lots of words? The script will be the focus? I mean, language isn't just spoken language... don't I do on about 'vocabularies of movement'?

Still, you get this stuff, I think. If I am not making sense, you work it out... are you going to be too busy to make it up here this year? I managed to finish my post-graduate research project during the Fringe last year, you know...