Scotland Wrap-Up

I just recently returned from Scotland, where I performed "Pentecostal Wisconsin" as part of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. I had planned to keep an ongoing account of my experience at the festival, but it was difficult to just find time to eat let alone to reflect and compose a blog entry. Now that the festival is over I have some time to do that. How do you describe the Edinburgh fringe? First of all, it's the largest arts festival in the world. This year there were over 1800 shows in the festival. It's quite hard to comprehend the size of it, even for someone who has seen it. The largest fringe festival in Canada, to give some perspective, contains less than 200 shows. The Ottawa and Victoria Fringe festivals in Canada both had less than 50 shows in their festivals this year. In Edinburgh, my venue alone had nearly 100 shows. The fringefestival in Edinburgh also lasts a lot longer than many festivals. This year it ran from August 2 - August 28, making it much more of a marathon than a sprint in comparison with a week long festival. In the month that I was there I performed the show 26 times. It was by turns exhausting, exhilarating, tiring, energizing, frustrating and inspiring. Edinburgh actually has several festivals all going on at once. There is the Edinburgh International Festival, around which the "fringe" of performers who had been rejected from the International Festival decided to make their own festival, giving rise to the now much larger Edinburgh Festival Fringe. There is also a book festival and a film festival as well as the Edinburgh Military Tattoo (a demonstration and spectacle of military groups from around the world). Together these events make Edinburgh festival central in August. One of the biggest surprises I had in Edinburgh was finding out how much money is involved in the Fringe there. There are many shows with big budgets and big producers. The festival is entirely open. You pay a fee to be listed in the official Fringe program and once you find a space you are in business. The openess of the festival is both a blessing and a curse. You see everyone from high school groups to famous or semi-famous actors performing. A couple years ago Christian Slater appeared in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" at the Edinburgh Fringe. For the more well-known acts there is a lot of money spent on publicity. One of the first surprises I had was spotting a taxi that had a huge ad for a fringe show plastered on the side. The other major surprise was discovering how popular stand-up comedy is in Edinburgh. If you are a comic, especially a comic in Europe, Edinburgh is the place to be in August. Stand-up seems to be the number one draw in the festival. The major struggle that nearly everyone faces in Edinburgh is getting an audience. As part of the Fringe you are competing not only with the other 1800 shows in that festival but also with the other events taking place as part of other festivals. The smallest audience I had was 3. The largest audience I had was 23. If you want my definition of "humbling," it would be performing for an audience of 3 people. Humbling is also the word I would use to describe the feeling you get when you are trying to hand out a few free tickets and people actually turn you down. It wounds the ego a bit when you find that, quite literally, you can't even give tickets away. That said, I was very encouraged to hear the response from the UK audience. Many people posted reviews of my show on the Edinburgh Fringe website and it was very rewarding to be able to see that though the audiences were small, they were also quite appreciative. I also managed to garner some good reviews from critics in Edinburgh. The List magazine and the daily Three Weeks both gave my show 4 stars out of 5. I also received some kind words about the show from Time Out London, The Stage and Broadway Baby. The New York Times even mentioned the show in an article they did covering the themes of this year's Edinburgh Fringe. So I guess the most obvious question is this: would I do it again? Yes, I would do it again. In fact, part of me wants to do it again just so that I can put to use all of the things I learned about doing Edinburgh this year. It would be wonderful to go into it not being the rookie. However, doing a show in Edinburgh is expensive even when you have a venue producing your show the way I did. It makes it difficult to project when I will have the opportunity and finances to make it there again. One thought really helped keep me going when I felt discouraged in Edinburgh. It's easy to be a performer when you have crowds lined up around the block, but it may be a truer test of your commitment to see if you can find a way to summon the energy to perform for a handful of people. At one point when my audience looked like it was going to be particularly small for the day's performance, someone asked me what my minimum number was to perform the show. As in, how many did I have to have in order to not cancel that particular performance. That was an easy question. I only need one person to perform for, not counting myself (or Jesus). I have tried to think through exactly how I feel about my experience in Edinburgh so that when people ask I have an articulate answer for them. So far an atricuate summary has alluded me, but I will give it another shot. Edinburgh was like a really long, challenging run. There were times when I thought I was going to tire from exhaustion and there were also times when I felt I could run forever. Now that it is over I am a bit sore and I need some time to rest and reflect, but, that said, I know that I am much improved for having completed the race. One last example (please forgive me for the following analogy from a man who will never face any pain anywhere near that of childbirth). I have heard women talk of promising themselves during labor that they will never have another baby, that they will never put themselves through the pain of giving birth again. Inevitably they also mention that once the baby is born and it's all over, they don't remember the pain so much as the pride they felt holding the baby in their arms and they find themselves willing to do it again. I am not sure what the parallel for me in terms of the baby, but I guess it's the pride I feel in the show and having had the opportunity to perform it overseas. I can also tell you this. As I was standing in line at the airport, ready to leave Edinburgh, I found myself already brainstorming plans for how I could come back in the future, making plans to have another baby. Hopefully next time the baby will have audiences lined up around the block to see it.