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!

The Dramaturgy of Sex Work

There is quite a bit of theatre about 'sex work' in the Fringe this year. Actually. this is a consistent trend - I've been pondering a feature about 'sex work on stage' since 2010, when I wrote a piece about lap dancing. Since many of the subsequent performances on the subject cover similar ground to my review (the gender and economic politics of stripping for the male gaze), I think I deserve a cut of any profits.

I admit an interest: I recently abandoned an essay on 'The Dramaturgy of the Lap Dance,' when I realised that the ethics proposal would be a nightmare and that it would cost me a couple of grand to see the performers (no press pass at the Rhino Club, gentlemen).

In line with my general attitude - that theatre ought to be politically engaged, right up until the point where I have to make difficult moral choices - shows about 'sex work' challenge me. Notice that I put sex work in inverted commas: not because I think it is a vague euphemism for prostitution, but because it covers such a wide range of activities, and I don't think that the continuity between them (sex) is sufficient to make them all part of the same genre.

Let's have a look at what we have this year, off hand.

This one is about those lines that I phone up when I am drunk and am hoping for a bit of human connection, only to end up feeling guilty and frustrated, because it costs too much on my mobile and... I am sorry. I meant to say 'about those lines that one phones up when one is drunk.'

I don't think phone sex and lap dancing are that similar: there are entirely different methodologies behind them, and while both are about getting the green, they provide different aesthetic products (and the commodity, despite being sexual, is different...)


Then there is Sister, which I reviewed here. It does deserve the sex work tag, because it covers quite a few topics (but, contrary to the various reviews, it does not begin with a 'full-on' lap dance. There is a lap-dance, but calling it full-on is exaggerating).

The range of topics within sex work make it very difficult to make the sort of vapid generalisations I like,so I am dividing and subdividing as I go... and thinking about where the lines are drawn, and at what point sex work itself becomes performance.

To be continued.

Sister @ The Arches 2014

Somewhere inside Sister's meandering exploration of family relationships, sex work and lesbianism, there is a passionate, fiery and determined performance that blends these competing themes into a vigorous,intelligent provocation. It emerges when Roseana Cade suddenly performs a dance, equally aggressive and sensual, clad only in heavy boots. Glimpses appear on Roseanna's face when she listens to her sister's stories of work in pornographic movies. And the bold opening, when the sisters perform lap-dances on two members of the audience, suggests that Sister is consciously challenging stereotypes and expectations.

Yet in the gentle dialogues between the sisters, often addressed to the audience and frequently recalling childhood adventures, has a strangely non-committal tone. Amy Cade discusses a variety of pornographic scenes in a calm, almost wistful manner, while the tender scene when she cleans off her sister's stripper make-up takes them back to a tale of a youthful home theatre production.

The two women are naked for most of the piece, but the atmosphere is less erotically charged than melancholic: they share experiences, reflect on their different paths before wandering tamely offstage, having dismantled the stripper-pole. Throughout, they refuse to moralise - Amy notes it is possible to take a face-full of cum and still be a feminist, and Roseana comments that her identity is tied up in her feminism - or probe deeper into the problems or industry of sex work. It's tentative, suggestive, more concerned with presenting raw information from their lives that developing any theme or agenda.

The repeated projection of home videos is a constant reminder of how the two women grew up together - the last sequence crassly suggesting that the desire to dance around a pole might have been foreshadowed on one sunny afternoon - but adds limited depth.  When Roseana forces two crude stereotypes together (the sensual lap-dancer and the booted, shaven headed feminist) does the performance provoke.

There is clearly a personal journey on display, and the ease with which the women slip between discussing sex and family reveals their mutual empathy: the structure, however, is loose and prevents a profound impact. Sister lacks precision and focus, neutralising its potential. As part of Roseana Cade's emergence as an important artist, it is an intriguing and promising production, showing that she is capable of addressing tough subjects in an original manner.  

Ban This Filth,Sister, JSA: A Dramaturg Writes

The influence of the cabaret format - a series of sketches moving towards a general analysis of a central theme - has been one of the more dynamic innovations in contemporary theatre. The Behaviour Festival provides plenty of examples (Job Seekers Anonymous, Ban This Filth, even Sister) - and it is ironic that artists from a literary (Alan Bissett) or live art tradition (the Cade sisters) are leading the trend, despite the health of Scottish cabaret.

The advantage is clear. Construction of a performance becomes a matter of stringing together a series of distinct episodes, allowing the creators to focus on their skill set (Bissett's superb parody of a big night out, JSA's sketches set in the dole office) and switching quickly between moods and styles (Sister flickered between the ambience of a lap-dancing club and a familial conversation). It also avoids the danger of presenting a single, dogmatic position. Sister and Ban This Filth both deal with the relationship between sex work and feminism, a topic that does not resolve into an easy conclusion.

Even the ambitious Cain's Book has a whiff of the cabaret. It is clearly an example of post-dramatic theatre (that is, a self-conscious performance that tends towards the cerebral rather than the emotional), but the jumps between the recitation of text, video footage, dancing girls and local rockers The Smack Wizards fit within the vaudeville format.

The other side of this influence is the danger of dilution. JSA is incisive when it comes to comparing the government's claims of a credit crunch against the ten million pound state funeral of Margaret Thatcher, but the patchwork quality of the structure distracted from the harsh political point-scoring. Equally, Sister has some brilliant interludes - in a stomping, sensuous dance, Rosana Cade sums up the conflict between a feminist resistance to sex-work and an acceptance of a woman's right to choose how she earns money - but often gets lost in memories of childhood.

There is a power in the loose format of cabaret, and The Creative Martyrs have been working out a way of

combining vaudeville with a theatrical consistency for years (and currently in Glasgow's Southside). There is also the possibility that these artists could be put together as part of a bill that takes their finest moments as self-contained and sharp routines. At the same time, in themselves, each performance has a habit of wandering and relying heavily on the charisma of the performers.

For all of these productions, the problem becomes one of structure. Rather than holding the attention, and following a clear narrative, they meander: Sister makes enough serious points in the first half an hour that the repeated flashbacks to the sister's childhoods become predictable and Cain's Book captures the ennui of the junkie at the cost of immediacy. Ban This Filth, which traces one man's battle with erotic capitalism, disappears into tales of the protagonist's youth which only tangentially connect to the main story.

On the other hand, this might be a problem of expectation... the episodic structure reflects the way that the internet works, the flicking and clicking between sites and tabs... a cyber-kinetic paddle through the shallows with breadth more important than depth... a set of specimens for further examination... less demanding... more allusive... playful... incomplete... until considered...