Totes Random! Five Fringe shows

LISTINGS INFORMATION | Amy and Rosana Cade: Sister

Preview Fri 1^st August 2014 Preview 8.15pm (75mins) | £10

Sat 2nd – Sun 24^th August 2014 (not Tuesdays) | 8.15pm (75mins) | £13/£11 conc.

Sat 9^th, Wed 20^th 2014 | BSL interpreted performances

| 0845 874 3000 | Summerhall Old Lab, Summerhall Place, Edinburgh EH9 1QH

AMY IZ SEKZ WERKR. HER SISTR, ROSANA, IZ RADICAL LESBIAN. THEY R BOTH FEMINISTS.
TOGETHR, THEY REVEAL EVRYTHIN IN DIS POWERFUL AN JOYOUS PERFORMANCE,
EXPLORIN FEMALE SEKSUAL IDENTITY, FEMINISM AN CHOICE.

SISTR WEAVEZ TOGETHR THEIR AUTOBIOGRAFICAL STORIEZ OV GROWIN UP, INDIVIDUAL CONTRASTIN SEKSUAL EXPERIENCEZ, POLE DANCIN, LAP DANCIN AN CHILDHOOD PPLZ VIDEOS IN AN INTIMATE STRIP CLUB SETTIN, WHICH THEY INHABIT, SUBVERT AN EVENTUALLY DECONSTRUCT.


Boris & Sergey’s Astonishing Freakatorium is on at Underbelly’s White Belly, Cowgate, at 7.20pm, from July 31 – August 24 (no show August 12).

THEY SWEAR CONSTANTLY DURIN THEIR LIV SHOWS AN R OFTEN SO OUTRAGEOUS DAT DISGUSTD AUDIENCE MEMBERS WALK OUT. BUT THEY’RE NOT MEMBERS OV DEATH METAL BAND – THEY’RE PUPPETS.

TEH HILARIOUS AWARD-WINNIN BALKAN BROTHERS BORIS & SERGEY – HOO DON’T EVEN HAS FASHUL FEATUREZ – HAS OFFENDD WIF THEIR FOUL MOUTHS, MOLESTD THEATRE-GOERS, AN SPILLD DRINX … BUT HAS STILL MANAGD 2 GARNR SLEW OV 5-STAR REVIEWS CUZ OV THEIR PATHOS AN CHARM.


DYLAN TATE, HOO OPERATEZ SERGEY’S HEAD, EXPLAIND: “TEH VRY FURST WEEK WE PERFORMD BORIS & SERGEY WAN ELDERLY LADY SED HOW MUTCH SHE ENJOYD PUPPETRY AN COULDN’T WAIT 2 C TEH SHOW. 4 MINUTEZ IN, BORIS ASKD 4 SUGGESHUNS 4 IMPRESHUNS. WAN AUDIENCE MEMBR SHOUTD ‘BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN’ AN WE OBLIGD BY RECONSTRUCTIN TEH TENT SEKZ SCENE. TEH OLD LADY WALKD OUT.

ARM OPERATOR, CHRIS DOBSON, AGRED: “IM PRITEE SURE I HAS SMACKD FEW AUDIENCE MEMBERS IN DA FACE AN I FINKZ BONNY GOT RSI FRUM HUMPIN PEEPS’S FACEZ WIF BORIS. WITHOUT DOUBT WHOEVR IZ ON TEH LEGS ALWAYS SPENDZ TEH MOST TIEM BEAN ELBOWD AN SWEATD ON. BUT DEN IF IZ NOT LIL BIT SWEATY AN DISGUSTIN, WERE NOT DOIN IT RITE.”

EUREKA! ENTERTAINMENT HAS ANNOUNCD TEH RELEASE OV FRAU IM MOND WOMAN IN DA MOON], SCIENCE-FICSHUN ODYSEY DAT FORETOLD MANZ FUCHUR IN ROCKET-BASD SPACE EXPLORASHUN.  

A MODERN DAEDALUS TALE WHICH UNCANNILY FORETOLD GERMANY’S WARTIME PUSH INTO ROCKET-SCIENCE, FRAU IM MOND. IZ AS MUTCH WARNIN-SIGN AGAINST HOOMAN HUBRIS AS IT BE HOPEFUL DEPICSHUN OV MANKIND’S POTENTIAL. TEH MASTERS OV CINEMA SERIEZ IZ PROUD 2 PRESENT IN DUAL FORMAT (BLU-RAY + DVD) SPESHUL EDISHUN TEH CULMINASHUN OV FRITZ LANG’S SILENT CINEMA, RESTORD 2 ITZ NEAR-ORIGINAL LENGTH.

STAGD IN RE-PURPOSD SHIPPIN CONTAINR, EVRYTHIN I OWN TELLS STORY OV FRIENDSHIP AN LOS IN DA DIGITAL AGE, PERFORMD SIMPLY 4 U.

 

FOLLOWIN TEH SUCCES OV CRITICALLY-ACCLAIMD RÉMAH IN 2012, EMERGIN THEATRE COMPANY EVRYTHIN I OWN RETURN 2 EDINBURGH WIF BRAND NEW SHOW, SOMEBODY I USD 2 KNOE - STORY OV CHILDHOOD FRIENDSHIP REKINDLD BY FACEBOOK POST, WHICH QUESHUNS TEH POWR OV TECHNOLOGY IN R SOCIETY AN RELASHUNSHIPS.

DEVISD AN PERFORMD BY CLAIRE GAYDON (“A TALENT 2 KEEP AN EYE ON” – TEH LIST), TEH SHOW INCORPORATEZ VIDEO PROJECSHUNS, MUSIC ANDSTORYTELLIN, AN WILL BE DELIVERD 2 WAN AUDIENCE MEMBR AT TIEM, CREATIN AN INTRICATELY PERSONAL AN INTIMATE EXPERIENCE.

OVAR TEH COURSE OV 20 MINUTEZ, GAYDON WILL TELL TEH STORY OV MEETIN BEST FREND, ANDREW, AT FOURTEEN. THEY BOND OVAR TEH SIMPSONS, MARIO KART AN MARLBORO REDZ, AN BEFORE LONG THEY R INSEPARABLE. AS IZ SO OFTEN TEH CASE WIF CHILDHOOD FRENZ, THEIR LIVEZ TAEK DIFFERENT DIRECSHUNS AN THEY EVENTUALLY DRIFT APART. IZ BEEN 6 YEERS SINCE THEY LAST SAW EACH OTHR, AN ANDREW HAS JUS POSTD ON FACEBOOK DAT HIS SISTR HAS LEUKAEMIA…

The show will debut in The Cloud, the company’s very own venue situated beside Assembly Roxy in Edinburgh's central Old Town, with performances taking place between 12:00 to 18:30 every half hour.

ONLY 4! HOW VRY RANDOM!

Today on the Vile Arts...

While I struggle with the very idea of authenticity - at least in my daily life, being a philosophical post-modernist who barely understands the meaning of the word - I am content to be enthusiastic about the guests I manage to persuade to come on the show. Of course, trying to keep up with the Glasgow art and music and culture and performance and drama and Live Art scenes has probably contributed to my general anxiety. The irony might be that the remaining sanity that I have has been preserved by the art that I see.

In the meantime, here are some puppets who are coming to Edinburgh Festival Again...

Making Moves on Marionette Morality

I'm fairly convinced that society still gets its kicks like in the old days: when Aristotle came up with the idea of catharsis he invented a tool that can explain the experience of audiences at everything from gladiatorial fights to X-Factor. Always purging the emotions, performance can be an immersive experience that allows the experience of dangerous emotions in a safe context. Most of the thrill offered by a Greek tragedy can be replicated by a few hours watching TV talent contests.

Getting onto my theatre soap-box, it seems obvious that live performance is always going to be a better location for catharsis. Only when the performers are in front of an audience can a meaningful connection be made - the heartlessness of the public attitude towards the losers on X-Factor suggests that the basic emotional recognition of a fellow human being has been by-passed. In the case of puppetry, however, this becomes problematic. Now, the human form is being represented by a marionette, an object devoid of life. Going by the logic of TV's ability to dehumanise the person, a puppet stand-in ought to be worse.

That said, the puppet can be even more emotive than the actor. Often, a puppet can be more vulnerable - in Boris and Sergey's Vaudevillian Adventure, it's the size of the two naughty boys when faced by demons that makes them sympathetic, even after they have spent the entire show trying to dupe the audience. More absurdly, the mask of a gorilla that Jonny Woo uses in his striptease routine adds to the tragedy and the comedy. After tripping on the banana skin, the gorilla's face seems to ask for sympathy, but seems full of joy when it tucks into the next course. Knowing that the face, being made of plastic, has not changed its expression makes the entire routine surreal. Even the cheeky puppet people of Vox Motus' Slick become more sympathetic through their bizarre fusion of human and costume.

Yael Rasooly, who is bringing Paper Cut to Edinburgh in February, has made a musical cabaret that reveals the tale of three sisters trying to escape the Holocaust - using dolls alongside actors. Objects - such as the lamp in Fringe hit The Fantasist -  can become cheeky characters just by virtue of being wobbled about a bit. Usually, anything inanimate, whether mask or doll, that is manipulated by the puppeteer's skill can become even more evocative than a real person.

Notwithstanding the equally long tradition of the sinister puppet - wasn't Chucky a national threat at one point? - this ability of an audience to transfer emotions makes puppetry a uniquely powerful medium. As long as they are kept unthreatening, puppets are able to embody possibly difficult personalities and ideas, and make them acceptable. The use of the puppet in children's educational television - Sesame Street is a better example than Orville - has provided the spoonful of sugar to help the factual medicine go down. And even seriously unpleasant characters, like Hitler, can be softened enough not to be immediately shocking. Leaving aside those children entertainers who could make a cuddly bear creepy, the puppet can become both a personality and a symbol - simultaneously engaging the emotions and the mind. It's a short-cut to audience connection. Even the exaggerated features of Japanese anime imitates the style of the puppet.

Marionettes, like computers in the twentieth century, formed the basis for some philosophical reflection on the nature of being human. Yet in the apparent mordant meditations of Henrich von Kleist, there are clues as to this strange quality in the manipulated object. Asking about the problems of consciousness, Kleist settled on the marionette as the perfect counterpoint to human self-awareness. Seeing how both grace and beauty are undermined in humans by self-consciousness, he contrasted this with the graceful state of the marionette under the control of their master. Suddenly, he discovered a model for the human being who has gone beyond vanity and resistance, towards a greater state of grace.

Whether von Kleist's On The Marionette Theatre was a serious attempt to link the Biblical parable of Genesis with the soon-to-emerge science of psychology, or merely a vaguely provocative dialogue aiming to mock vanity, its descriptions of the marionette theatre explain the peculiar nature of puppet movement.

"He asked me if I hadn't in fact found some of the dance movements of the puppets very graceful.... a group of four peasants dancing the rondo in quick time couldn't have been painted more delicately by Teniers," Henrich admits in conversation with a dancer. "Often shaken in a purely haphazard way, the puppet falls into a kind of rhythmic movement which resembles dance," the dancer replies, noting the connection between even incidental control and the apparently meaningful outcome. Realising that the dancer has found a purity in the marionette's movements that he finds lacking in human dancers, Henrich encourages him to continue. Eventually, the dancer proclaims that the puppet, lacking a soul, becomes a greater being than the human encumbering by 'affectation.'

Conclusions like this perhaps depend on the reader's willingness to accept the universe as a product of a divine being. Over on the TV talent shows, however, an inverse process is happening. Most of the contestants are being caricatured into marionettes, their personalities exaggerated to make them either more sympathetic or pathetic. Possibly, the process of catharsis is easier to experience on figures that are not fully human, which would account both for X-Factor and Oedipus Rex being ideal for a spot of purging. Looking back at Greek theatre, it is possible that the high emotions were indeed stimulated by the tradition of wearing masks. Earliest tragedy is, at least, an ancestor of the modern puppet show. Talent shows, for all their echoes of the gladiatorial arena, use the surrounding media to make masks to hide the reality of their contestants. 

Puppetry Poker Pit

It starts so innocently. Boris and Sergey are off-stage, assessing the audience and gleefully imagining the quickest way to empty their wallets. A few moments later, they bound on-stage, supported by their puppeteers and ready to entertain. The Vaudevillian Adventure has begun.

The two dastardly puppets, mysteriously eastern European in accent and origin, keep to their promises, at first. Acting as hosts and turns, they present a late night cabaret - full of adult humour, sibling bickering and a move perfect impersonation of Kate Bush's Wuthering Heights video. The audience interaction is friendly, until they invite a man and a woman up to their Puppet Poker Pit.

The Puppet Poker Pit is supposed to be the chance for Boris and Sergey to fleece their marks. Unfortunately, due to follhardy bidding and their innate stupidity, the game descends into farce and deadly demons are summoned. And, although they admit that there is only a single plot moment in the entire hour, the last twenty minutes shifts the mood from drunken revelry to more serious themes, and a virtuosic display of action puppeteering.

The Adventure is a mixture of improvised humour and skillful set-pieces: when Boris and Sergey throw down, they do it Matrix style in a tightly choreographed recreation of Neo's famous "bullet-time" ruckus. But the banter with the two audience members (one renamed "The Lonely One" in possible hommage to another puppetry based show in the Pleasance) is quick-witted and sponataneous. These puppeteers know how to act and play the crowd.

Perhaps more than any other performance form, puppetry relies on the gap between what is literally on-stage - in this case, six puppeeters and two faceless puppets - and the pretended activity - high speed chases, magic tricks, injury and, finally, damnation. The Adventure elegantly exploits the gap, making Boris and Sergey aware of their puppeteers and forcing them to explain their presence. When the anti-heroes meet their respective tragic ends, this gap is enlarged, lending pathos is what is, literally, a couple of inanimate objects being thrown to the table.

The performance satisfies on several levels: the skill of the puppetry, the humour of the routines and the sudden dark finale are all impressive. Knowing nods to the artificiality of the show and sharp pop-cultural references reveal the thoroughly post-modern intelligence of the company: it deconstructs the action even as it entertains and moves. The usual blather about "puppetry not being just for children" is replaced by a new blather: "puppetry is for intelligent adults, who have a sophisticated appreciation of the form, but aren't above a good laugh."