Fringe Memories 2015: Daggers and Jesus and That

Of course you have missed me... I've been ill. It's always good to have a complete physical breakdown after the Fringe. Apart from being a nice change from the mental breakdown during, I get to lie in bed and wonder where it all went wrong. 

Here's what I was thinking about while I was bleeding from parts of my body I'd rather didn't weep all over the bedsheets.

Daggers MacKenzie
It's not often that I go to the magic of the musicals, but when there is the promise of a knife-welding cowgirl, I'm in. Daggers is a solo show, and there really are scenes of juggling really sharp objects and singing in tune. Frankly, that's enough right there to impress me, but Daggers seems to be the kind of work that the Fringe ought to exist to encourage: an individual artist showing off her range of skills, getting an audience and feedback on where to go next.

Melissa Kaplan writes songs that recall the classic musicals (like Oklahoma and that), with a rocking edge and a contemporary sensibility. She has a voice that can do sweet and angry by turns, and a sly sense of humour. 

If I were Lyn Gardner evaluation*: one to watch.

Christ on a Bike
Chris JS Wilson might be best known as the dancer-choreographer for The Kitsch Kats, but he also devised a routine that took advantage of his flowing locks and beard and similarity to a Renaissance painting of Jesus. Christ on a Bike expanded the character, mashing up Biblical allusions, social media speak and ironic humour: at just under an hour, it represents Wilson as more than just a pretty face and a hot body.

His choreography, as always, is tight and funky, while his chatty interludes reveal a charismatic entertainer who, somehow, manages to stay on the right side of blasphemy. It's a sterling example of how longer form cabaret routines - Wilson is a frequent show-stopper at variety nights - can encourage performers to expand their characters and dig out new skills and collaborations.

If I were Lyn Gardner evaluation*: There are few things more pleasurable than a cracking version of Jesus and a good scab.








*Please note: I am not Lyn Gardner. It is just that she uses more useful phrases for posters and that.

Ryan, check these out @ Edfringe 2015

Hey, Ryan: it was great to see you! I think you caught the last of the Glasgow summer, too... good work. 

Anyway: tops tips for The Fringe? You know I know... you say you are bringing your girlfriend? So two people will hate me if I suggest a flop...

Daggers MacKenzie

Do I need to say anymore? It's called Daggers MacKenzie. Well, the performer used to be in a  rocking band (do people still say 'rocking'?), and the story is full of wild west high jinks. 

Plus, there are daggers getting chucked about. Won't that remind you of your time in Dundee?





Satan Speaks

It's the Fringe: if there was ever going to be a chance for the prince of darkness to walk abroad and not be noticed, it has to be Edinburgh in August. Just watch out for any flyers that you might pick up: your soul for an hour of good comedy can feel like a bargain.

But as Satan himself insists, he does not exist anyway. But going dark for a few hours won't hurt (and the promotional video suggests that this might be a witty monologue, theology aside).




Clout: Feast
Cast n'er a clout, til the Fringe be out. These Lecoq trained anarchists (aesthetically, not politically, Mr Cameron) are having a slap-up this year. So that means cannibalism is on the menu. Probably not one to see before you've had whatever food you manage to pick up between shows, but a company who are showing how the British can adapt the French style (although the company has members from around the world). Take that, UKIP.




RIOT

I don't know if you have the same enthusiasm that I have for super-heroics but this is something like my dream production. There are super-heroes and dancing. It's avant-garde but feeds from comic culture.  Contemporary dance is tough enough already, but add in a tale of people with powers and cool outfits... 







Blake Remixed




I might have picked this one, but the PR has not replied to my repeated email. So, maybe, if you like Blake's poetry? 






Anyway, if you like any of these, pick one, and I can do another top five based on it... you know, like 'if you like this, then...'

The Dramaturgy of the Dagger: Daggers MacKenzie

Kaplan was first compelled to create her one-woman, lesbian circus indie pop-rock opera after playing the role of “Yitzhak” in a Boston run of the musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch, where The Boston Globe recognized her “rich soprano” vocals.
A working writer, she began crafting the story and songs for Daggers while on a European tour as a guitarist with The Bitchfits, the all-female tribute to the punk band The Misfits, where she performed alongside punk rock legends the US Bombs, UK Subs, and Agnostic Front.

Production: Daggers MacKenzie

Company: Melissa A. Kaplan

Venue: Spotlites, Venue 278, 22 Hanover Street, EdFringe

Dates: Sunday 16 Aug to Tuesday 31 August 2015

Time: 16:45 (50 min)

Tickets: £10 / £8 concession

Venue box office: 0131 220 5911 /

The Fringe

What inspired this production: did you begin with an idea or a script or an object?
Melissa Kaplan: I began with songs. I’m a songwriter and musician and I got bored of performing music concert style. I wanted to tell the story with my body. Bring it to life. The idea for the main character came to me in a dream and everything else flowed from there.

Why bring your work to Edinburgh?
The audiences come expecting something different. I want to be around people hungering for something new, willing to enter the space with an open mind. And I want to be a part of something big.

What can the audience expect to see and feel - or even think - of your production?
I can’t anticipate that, but I can project my intention. At a very basic level, everyone’s going to be following a story. But somewhere between the music, characters and performance, I’m conspiring to take them with me into the moment so they can get whatever it is they need. Everyone’s going to interpret it differently.



The soundtrack for Daggers was produced and recorded by her longtime

musical mentor, Michael Eisenstein, guitarist for Melissa Etheridge and co-writer for Top 40 alternative rock band Letters to Cleo.

After years of performing, she brought her show concept to award-winning director and mime Stephanie Abrams, founder of the school and theatre Kinetic Theory Circus Arts in Los Angeles. Abrams trained Kaplan’s body deeply for the roles and directed her premiere.

Beyond the on-stage spectacles of juggling knives and personas, Kaplan leans heavily on her musical strengths in the show; she trained voice at the University of Southern California’s Thornton School of Music, and flips from soothing pop to rock-opera vibrato on a dime.

The Dramaturgy Questions

How would you explain the relevance - or otherwise - of

dramaturgy within your work?

It was fundamental. The show wouldn’t exist without the dramaturgical guidance of Stephanie Abrams, who also directs the show. As a writer I tend to get intensely into my head, and onstage I have no idea if something will translate. 

Stephanie is a gifted mime and brilliant about physicalizing a story – everything from where you stand on stage to how the positioning of your body can reflect a character or make an audience feel. I laid out my intentions for the story -- she helped me make sense of my characters’ actions and tested and secured the logic of the show.


What particular traditions and influences would you acknowledge on your work - have any particular artists, or genres inspired you and do you see yourself within their tradition?
Circus has really inspired me. I’ve only fallen into it in recent years through my training at Kinetic Theory Circus Arts in Los Angeles, and it’s changed the way I approach my art and even the way I think.

Hedwig and the Angry Inch is also a huge influence on me. I heard the music before I saw the movie back in 2001, and then I was Yitzhak in a Boston stage production in 2004. When I felt ready to expand what I did onstage, I looked to Hedwig for direction and the way it made me feel. I played with the format of just a band and one performer leading the way. 

At Edinburgh Fringe, I won’t even have a band. I do intend to see Hedwig though (I saw it front row center when it finally made it to Broadway this past February with John Cameron Mitchell. I cried).


Do you have a particular process of making that you could describe - where it begins, how you develop it, and whether there is any collaboration in the process?
I’m very much guided by music. It’s the first place for me that’ll spark a feeling, and then I’ll begin taking my cues from there. For Daggers, I first wrote the songs, and then I developed the characters, relationships and story with Stephanie. Through working with her I’ve learned to become much more physical.

What do you feel the role of the audience is, in terms of making the meaning of your work?
Daggers is a performer and her world is a circus, and the audience gets to become part of her world. It’s crucial for the characters to have an audience for their show, as it’s a show within a show.