Week 1 at Edinburgh Fringe

Monday, July 28

I finally arrived in Edinburgh after a flight so delayed in Manchester, NH that I missed my flight to Scotland. I took an Uber to Boston ($$$) and booked a new same day overnight flight to Edinburgh ($$$), and hit the ground running to my apartment with my wheeled suitcase in tow over cobblestone streets, whereby I lost my key before getting to my apartment, had to backtrack to find it with my wheeled cart over cobblestone streets, things going so awry that I had to do that back-and-forth thing five times. I know that is a run-on sentence. That's what it felt like. Then I went to my tech rehearsal where I discovered that my "stage" is 6 feet by 10 feet. It's really a spot rather than a stage. It's fine. Stories can be told well in all kinds of spaces.

Tuesday, July 29

I had no performance today so I spent my time first getting a bus pass and then getting lost trying to get home on the bus. I have absolutely no sense of direction. Nonetheless I launch out onto my walks with great confidence, almost always in the wrong direction. I board the wrong bus with confidence as well and get off at the wrong stop with similar aplomb. I finally made my way to the Royal Museum to meet Chuck and Jules for lunch,. They are friends who came in from Switzerland to see the show. As we were sipping our fizzy Elderberry something-or-other, Ellen Wilson came sashaying down the street—Chuck and Julia's daughter! Chuck had arranged for her to travel to Edinburgh to surprise me and Jules. A perfect day.

Wednesday, July 30

I had my first preview performance at the Gilded Balloon’s Eve Theatre in Appleton Tower. About 25 people showed up, which is a great showing for a preview. Performing on my "spot" was just fine as was the audience. A woman named Kerry was sitting in the front row dressed head-to-toe in a Holstein-patterned outfit. She was the nicest person ever. She told me that every year she puts together a spreadsheet of the Must See Shows based on research of reviews, and sells it to grateful festival goers. The Fringe has 3,500 shows so people coming here are desperate for help in sorting the wheat from the chaff. She said that she chose 35 Must See Theater Shows and mine was one. THANK YOU KERRY!

Thursday, July 31

Chuck informed me that my show drives home how cold the walk was using temperatures in Fahrenheit, leaving all European audience members thinking I walked for 40 days in a warm rain. Whoops! So before today's show I converted all references to temperature into centigrade and knuckled down to re-memorize. The big joy today was that Yvonne, a dear Camino friend who now lives in Ireland, arrived and was in the audience. As was a reviewer. Another perfect day.

Friday, August 1

I took four buses today! Two going the wrong direction and the other two backtracking. It's just the way it is. This is day three for my show and I'm thoroughly enjoying myself, not the least because afterward I go to the place where all the food trucks are and order something that is a total mystery to me. (NOT HAGGIS and NOT BLOOD SAUSAGE, which I'll admit are mysteries to me—not because I don't know what they are, but because I do know what they are and have no idea why someone would put that in their mouth. But I think the same thing about hotdogs.) I also order a COLD beer. You actually have to specify cold otherwise they serve it at room temperature. I learned that with my first beer. I spent the entire remainder of the afternoon and into the evening sitting at a picnic table painted P-U-R-P-L-E talking with my Camino friend Yvonne about everything that was running around in our heads. A great day despite it being August 1 and absolutely freezing.

Saturday, August 2

I can confidently say that I have learned to put on false eyelashes. This is a sentence I never imagined coming out of my pen. But I spare no pride when it comes to my show, so false eyelashes it is. Every day that I have a show, on they go!

And, not only did I manage to figure out what bus to take to my venue today, but also which side of the street to be on when it came by. The Number 9 to King's Buildings. So I arrived 15 minutes early to the bus stop feeling relieved and proud. When I saw the bus coming it seemed to be clipping along at a good pace, and then zooooom, it went right by me. I later learned you're supposed to stand OUTSIDE the bus stop and put your hand out at about waist level. So I'll try that tomorrow.

This afternoon I read a fascinating book review of Goliath's Curse by Dr. Luke Kemp. He traces the rise and collapse of more than 400 societies over the last 5,000 years and what the common causes were. Although he thinks the deck is stacked against us escaping a world-wide collapse of our global community, his advice for dodging whatever is inevitable is "don't be a dick." That seems relatively easy and low cost. But no. Evidently for most countries these days that's harder than it seems.

But it's not hard for the Scottish. My gosh these people are nice—baristas, bus drivers, food truck vendors, everyone standing in line at the bus stop. They're all nice. They are helpful. They are not snide. Even the bus driver says thank you as you disembark (assuming he stopped to pick you up in the first place). I want to kiss them all! I feel no stress when I arrive back at my apartment after a day of interacting with what seems like everybody. They are definitely not dicks.

Sunday, August 3

I got my false eyelashes on today rather expertly. I rode two buses—both were the right buses going in the right direction. So yahoo.

My show today was particularly good (they aren't all the same) except that, in an effort to cool off the room that is so hot some performers are canceling their shows rather than perform in the heat, they opened the windows in the 15 minutes between shows. Unfortunately, they forgot to close the one right up near the space where I perform (I call it my "spot" because it is so small it truly cannot be called a stage). About ten minutes into my show a cat was being tortured right outside my window—I mean screaming and yowling and crying. It went on for so long that I thought maybe something had gone wrong with the audio cues for my show and started to doubt that I could perform with this kind of noise for 50 more minutes. I hated to wish ill on the cat but I really wanted it to just die already—or that someone would find a way to put it out of its misery. FINALLY the noise stopped and all I heard were cars. Maybe someone ran over the cat, I thought.

At the end of the show I was told it was a crow. That the crew had neglected to close the window and a crow was, what, mimicking a dying cat? The good thing, besides that the crow moved on, was that the room was a wee bit cooler with that open window.

My little fridge froze all the fruit I put in there so I dumped it in a pot and cooked it. Hunger is the best sauce.