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...
What inspired this production: did you begin with an idea or a script or an object?
Pollyfilla: We launched Pollyanna launched in Edinburgh in February 2015 as we wanted a space that celebrated experimentation without forgetting about entertainment. Its an intimate test-bed cabaret; new and weird ideas, never performed before are all welcome. It’s grown in to a monthly night of performance art, drag, stand-up, video art, experimentation and now we've got a five-night-a-week residency at Paradise Palms.
My name is Pollyfilla and I am the queer creature hostess of this messy evening, with a seemingly endless amount of costume changes.
Why bring your work to Edinburgh?
The night was born in Edinburgh outside of the Festival season and since all you lot have lugged yourself up here for a month we thought we better make some sort of effort to prepare something special for your arrival in this windy city.
What can the audience expect to see and feel - or even think - of your production?
Pollyanna will be the free (!) end of the evening night where you can be guaranteed a messy, glitzy introduction to new set of alternative performers each night. There are exactly 45.7million shows happening in the Fringe and we are in the midst of picking all the weirdos out of that bunch to part our velvety curtains.
At Pollyanna you can grab a cocktail, dance to our DJs whilst I rudely interrupt your evening by falling onstage in bulging PVC to introduce an ever-changing showcase.
The Dramaturgy Questions
How would you explain the relevance - or otherwise - of dramaturgy within your work?
Improv, reacting to what is happening and not second-guessing myself too much are all very important. All my best ideas I have thought of at three in the morning in a frantic panic before our show. Or exactly 23 seconds before landing on stage with a cocktail in my hand. 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. And then we would all be sad.
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?
Drag and queer performance has both the history and potential to be political and subversive. It should disturb and discomfort the conventions of gender and sexuality. Family-friendly lovely-lovely drag holds little interest for me, it’s time to reclaim the queer potential of drag before it runs itself in polished hole.
In the Fringe I shall be channelling John Waters’ films with Divine, mixed in with Ryan Trecartin’s video art and the three witches of Macbeth. Unshaven beard and untucked crotch, I shall be a fluid queer creature rather than a pristine-queen.
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?
As well as hosting the night I am finding acts to come on board as well as encouraging people who haven’t performed before to try out new ideas. We've had lots of people perform who have never performed before and that is really important to us, to be able to provide this space for risk-taking and new ideas. So for me the most exciting thing of each night is seeing all of the acts together in one night feeling like we've organised a massive treat for the audience.
So there is an element of collaboration to it all; each night is made up of a new set of performers each night, and together they make Pollyanna.
What do you feel the role of the audience is, in terms of making the meaning of your work?
For me as a hostess the audience is essential to pretty much everything I do; flirting, insulting, de-heckling and welcoming - they are needed for it all. And Pollyanna its about an experience for the whole evening for the audience, from when you enter our venue Paradise Palms, a bar filled with tassles, velvet and bunting, to when you are watching yoghurt being licked off someones face on stage, to when you are dancing with the performers at the end of the night.
Pollyanna is on Sunday to Thursday for the full three weeks with two extra performances on the 6th and 7th
10pm-3am (performances 11pm-1am)
Paradise Palms
41 Lothian Street
Opposite Bristo Square
Edinburgh
EH1 1HB
Venue 411
ww.twitter.com/pollyannalive
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. 
