Painless

There. Just there. I have never considered suicide seriously and, as Camus said, that is the mark of a trivial man. Only by acknowledging the limitations of human freedom - that we are born not at our own command and live at the whims of other forces, known and unknown - is a moment of freedom possible. In the corrupted words of William Burroughs, in the time when a man recognises that he is about to die, then he is immortal.

Teatr ZAR deserve applause, a star rating, the standing ovation, the encomiums and receptions - the feast laid out for them, a table groaning with red wine and shattered glass, rich foods awaits as they sneak away, into the rain and leave behind the hollow clapping of an audience. There. Just there.

Caesarian Section. Essays on Suicide, supported by heavy struts of solid song, howls and rages and even laughs on foundations cast in death and the thoughts of death, the vignettes of disappointed love and frantic sensual drumming. There, just there, above the heart, their voices rise and harmonise like heavenly choirs - the cliché seems set to take hold but like the polyphony there are levels of emotion, the higher notes anguished, the lower echo out the stability of the tradition. The stage was made for those whom the church was not enough.

Alone, two hours of more later, the hum of the air conditioning above me and the world outside the building in silence - or at least, I cannot hear the warm conversations of the Summerhall night - I take snatches of hot Korean food, sip coffee and try to retain the mood that was left behind when ZAR escaped the theatre. In my head, Dylan snarls, "sometimes even the President of the United States must stand naked" and I replay that moment when he sings to Donovan... "look at yonder orphan with his gun..."

There. The day begins in sunshine and ends in rain: The Traverse after breakfast and Rob Drummond saunters on stage. The audience know he will perform the most deadly trick in magic, The Bullet Catch, and he wanders around a variety of shticks and stunts, befriends one man before asking him to shot him in the face.

My day has asked me about the nature of suicide, and how it might be the only way to determine freedom. In the early evening, murderous rain clamouring against the roof, ZAR are demanding. Just there. Not the cheap participation of pantomime, instead they want attention, silence, a willingness to embrace the horrific sequences of despair. Rob Drummond makes eye contact with his audience, appears to read their minds.

No tardy celebrations of the post-modern here... the Fringe is filled with worthy souls who recognise the potential of this age, the age of information and juxtaposition. Here's a necessary freedom, to match and mix, to mismatch and fix, to reconfigure Shakespeare to swing or hip-hop, the spoken word lilting over a pounding beat... those ancient questions won't go away, the quest for meaning, Rob Drummond reflects on his father's ministry (his work forever becomes a tale of the Christ who does not rise), The Stranger forever caught on that baking hot beach, shooting a human who is never named but ever just "an arab."

If meaning is up for grabs and everything is possible, can rolling out eighteen scenes in a large black tent to the sound of two cellos, an accordion, a violin, the drum and the voice, the holy voices recant this modern age and instil a soft, silent point around which the world can ever revolve again?

More coffee. Just there. Outside a festival filled with laughter and the memory of a time when a therapist looked at me.

"Have you ever thought that the jokes are just a defence mechanism?"

ZAR do not speak (a quotation from the programme notes "we had no language between us. Only words") only run and fall, run their arms through a river of broken glass, the metaphorical falls into the literal. Here's a single light on a single body. Then the woman tries to remove her straps, only to be trapped by the repetitive gestures, fast and more hysterical and the drum hammers, the shrillness of the song and saw is damning...

Only fragments. It begins in darkness and the smash of glass. It ends in a face, leaning backwards, mouth open. Rob Drummond comments that it is a fact: if the beginning of a sequence is predetermined, there can be no freedom within that sequence. Suicide is in both works, a symbol of freedom, perhaps, and polished so brightly that is becomes freedom. Just there.

Caesarian Section, Summerhall, 15- 20 August

Bullet Catch, Traverse, 3-26 August

Crunch Top Five

My love of the Crunch is well documented: the Mighty Boosh based a character on me once. In fact, in that scene, when they talk about the Crunch, they meant my old Shimmy Skinny HQ in Dance Base. And now, the Crunch is back, and here are the shows full of apocalyptic goodness.

I was pretty disappointed in most of the Russian season - perhaps because I expected them all to serve up the same bleak sanctity evident in Derevo's Mefisto Waltz. However, the late night Lidia Kopina & Veronika Berashevich entry comes from the same school as Derevo, relying on only the body (and a honking saxophone battling an electronic soundscape to follow a human life from the first awkward steps to sexy times and fighting fits.

Settimana has a great deal in common with the Polish piece at Dance Base, Lost in Details, encouraging a direct, visceral response to a series of choreographed sketches. Yet it has a stronger narrative - birth starts it all, death ends it, and the various stages of life are expressed with clarity. Jerky, uncomfortable movements gradually give way to  more fluid passages, and dance, always at its most accessible when used to articulate the internal state, triumphs. The combination of raw music, provocative content (the war sequence looks like fun) and a demanding movement vocabulary, shaved of tricks and posturing, are perfect for a late night slot before sliding into troubled slumbers.

Assembly Roxy, 6 -27 August


Meanwhile, a last chance to see over at the French Institute. Sometimes cool is over-rated, but other times different versions of cool team up and have a three way. Rock is based on an oral history of punk, Please Kill Me, and has cool characters like Iggy Pop and Patti Smith wandering through the narrative, alongside abusive asses like Sid Vicious and Jim Morrison: it was made in France, so the performers - voice and cello - have that Gallic nonchalance that is the hallmark of Noveau Vague hip. Then it was originally made for Avignon  Festival, lending it an avant-garde chic.

It might come on as frosty as Lou Reed in 1973, all shrugs and dismissive style, but Rock is a dishevelled tribute to those who gave their lives in the name of art rock. Vincent Courtois reinvents the cello, playing up its melancholic tone before launching into brutal rock outs, while Pierre Baux regales with tales of too many drugs, too much ambition and, in some cases, too little smarts.
Courtois is transported by his own noise, leaving Baux to delve into the undergrowth, discovering the truth about Jim Morrison, Howling like Ginsberg and translating a Velvet Underground number into a French, existential monologue on the nature of youthful passion. Intimate, intense: it has a holiday home in the Crunch.

French Institute, 3 -18 August

We are Chechens comes from the Polish invasion party that has taken up residence at Summerhall: a slice of verbatim theatre from the edge of human experience, the war between Russia and Chechnya. Director Marcin Brzozowski has previously shown an interest in those places where the so-called West and Islam are in conflict. Like Rock, it goes to oral histories and focuses on individuals caught in circumstances beyond their control.

This  time, the spectre is not drug use but civil conflict. Using testimony from both sides, it avoids drawing a broad political conclusion but emphasises the human cost. This is pretty common as a theatrical trope, but the approach of the cast - students from the Lodz film school, which seems to be the cradle for Poland's next generation of provocative artists - translate the horror into immediate and recognisable stories.

Summerhall, 6 -13 August

Even kids need the Crunch, and who better to introduce it than Jeff Achtem? I caught Swamp Juice down at Latitude and despite my fear of "all ages" shows, the 3D finale had me screaming in fear when the big claw reached out to catch the bird. As reviewed in The Skinny, this is a tale of puppets and nature red in tooth and claw, as Bunk tries to collect floral and fauna, only to be defeated by the power of avian cunning.

Swamp Juice gets the balance between humour and horror: Bunk is a slightly frightening character, like Ken Campbell impersonating that bloke what got stung to death. His  mania for collecting - mirrored by Achtem's mania for building odd little puppets, probably in his decrepit shed - makes him the terror of snails and birds. Yet justice is finally served, in a gentle, funny way.

Underbelly, 14 - 27 August 

Any artist from Glasgow knows about the Crunch, and none more than Rob Drummond. If the boy isn't Wrestling - the show were he got it on in the squared circle with one of my ex-Latin pupils who is now a Scottish wrestling superstar - he's trying to shoot himself. Bullet Catch is at the Traverse, and has Drummond recreating the titular magic trick.

Drummond is one of Scotland's brave young stars, adapting his role as author to the demands of his restless intelligence and desire to crack open new theatrical territory. By using performance itself as the foundation of the production, he exposes the mundane need for companionship and community, reflects on death and the way that the glorious surface of life can hide misery and doubt.

Traverse, 3 -26 August




All well and good, but here is the real Crunch. Today, I make six hours of radio. Hear the results here.