Week 2 at Edinburgh Fringe

Monday, August 4

Today I lost both my credit cards, my bus pass, and my driver's license. I spent HOURS on the phone talking to powerless people in call centers who assured me nothing could be done. After having my phone call cut off inexplicably six times, on my seventh time I was successfully rerouted to a person in the US, waiting 55 minutes on hold being told repeatedly by a recorded voice how important I was. Eventually a very nice woman named Laura promised me that a new card would arrive here in Scotland in ten days. That's the express service. I paid extra for it.

My show was all I hoped for and the audience was fantastic.

Tuesday, August 6

At the last minute I got an email from my producer saying that a show his friend was producing had a reviewer coming and very few seats sold. The curtain time was in 45 minutes and they wanted as many people in the audience as possible.

I ran out of my house and flew down the street to the bus stop for the twenty minute ride and eight minute walk to the theater knowing my terrible sense of direction made this a dicey gamble. Thankfully, I arrived in time to a very sparse audience.

I See You Watching is the best theater production I have ever seen—or, more importantly, felt—in my long life. It hit me in the chest like a medicine ball. I could not believe the courage and talent of the two actors pulling off this unflinching look at culturally embedded misogyny. I know that sounds like a yawn. It was riveting. The writing, the acting—-the nerve—destroyed me in the best possible way and, in consequence, inspired me. Can I possibly write something that lays bare an issue with such force and beauty?

On a much more quotidian note, I cracked my rib last week. In my delusional optimism I had decided my torso was just bruised—except there was no bruise. And the fact that I couldn't take a deep breath (rough when I was performing) nor sleep on my stomach, forced me to rethink. I have broken a rib before and had to admit that no amount of positive thinking was going to fix this thing. I did a little research and sure enough—cracked or broken rib. The research also suggested taking ibuprofen. Who knew?

Wednesday August 7

I don't have an electrical outlet in my bathroom (this does seem like a serious design flaw) so I have to dry my hair with my very cool round-brush-hair-dryer in the very tiny galley kitchen while I look at my reflection in the window of the microwave. I don't mind. I sort of look better in the microwave window than in the mirror.

Tonight I went to another outstanding production—a flagrantly over-the-top original musical that was the extreme opposite of last night's bare bones show. It was titled How To Win Against History about an unknown, wildly rich transvestite in the early 1800s whose diary and all personal effects were destroyed upon his death at 28 years old—to rid the record of evidence of his perverse life. The only remaining evidence that he existed was an entry in a census book that described him as living his life in vain. The whole production circled around this description of him and his rewriting of that description. It was absolutely over-the-top, brilliantly produced and acted, hilarious, and all in service to looking at our own prejudices and how we diminish people. There wasn't a moment lost in that production to push things as far as they could be pushed in content, in creativity, in smartness, and in production values. It was simply astounding.

How lucky I feel to be here and to have a daily dose of how amazing humans can be.

Thursday, August 7

I was waiting at a new bus stop today right across the street from a small market. A young-ish red-headed man who looked to be nineteen or twenty years old walked out of the market carrying a small tray of raspberries and another of blueberries. That's exactly what I buy when I go to the market. Just to make conversation I casually said, "That looks good!" Without a breath to think, he peeled back the cellophane and said "Would you like some?" pushing the little plastic tray toward me. This kind of idle, spontaneous generosity and kindness is just the way it is here. This is normal. I took two raspberries, thanked him, and it was the start to another fabulous day.

Then I took Emily, my stage manager, to see I Can See You Watching. I was delighted to see the show again. I can't stop thinking about this play. It was just as provocative the second time around—or perhaps more so because the women sitting behind us thought it was HILARIOUS. (It's not hilarious.) Afterward Emily and I went to the bar that's in the theater venue to talk about the show. The production’s cast and crew were there, too—sitting around two tables they had pulled together. The two actors waved us over. They recognized me as having attended the performance on Tuesday and asked me about the women sitting behind us and what on earth they thought was so funny. We had a fascinating conversation about the troubling themes of the play and the role of laughter in deflecting what you don't want coming in at full force aiming straight at your heart, or your memories. It was a great evening. And the beer was cold.

Friday, August 8

After my show today I beetled over to the former Women's Locker Room at Summerhall (this is really and truly the venue for this show—and it couldn't be more perfect) to see Chat Sh*t, Get Hit. I LOVED the show. It's a petite young actor with a perfect complexion telling the most inventive, captivating, unexpected story about her rage. I couldn't take my eyes off her and I can't wait to go see the show again. The venue seats only twenty-four and the intimacy of the setting combined with the gigantic storytelling is truly dynamite—and I choose that adjective deliberately.

In the evening I went back to the Gilded Balloon to see several unremarkable shows, but what was very remarkable was to be in the walkway overlooking the Grand Hall where everyone gathers to drink beer and eat potato chips (it's a limited menu) and watch a perfectly happy Fringe worker carry a tray of electric candles through the hall and put one on every table. This is NOT NECESSARY and yet… that's what makes it such a joy.

Then I saw Rosie O'Donnell’s new show, Common Knowledge, which was absolutely fantastic. She didn't belt out the jokes. She told the story of the adoption of her fifth child (all her children were adopted at birth) who has autism. It was a touching story filled with self-deprecating humor and overflowing with love. I felt so happy to be in the audience.

What a great day.

Saturday, August 9

This was kind of a less than great bus day. The rock band Oasis is here. I don't know anything about them except that it seems like a really bad time to come to Edinburgh and jam up the roads and the buses and the sidewalks and the cafes even more than they are already jammed up.

I got to the bus stop early because sometimes the bus gets there early. Today was not an early day, but many Americans going to the Oasis concert arrived after I did. And when the bus arrived (late) they rushed to the doors (the etiquette is that you wait for people to depart before you calmly line up in the order you arrived at the bus stop) and elbowed their way onto the bus until the driver said that he had reached capacity and could not allow more people on the bus, including me.

What ensued was me getting on the wrong bus without any internet reception, which took me to some hinterlands of Edinburgh where there was also no internet reception, then in Scottish (his mother tongue) the busdriver described to me how to catch the Number 9: Jist stey'n thees boos oonteel ya geet to'th croosng, y'no theen teekth noomer twinty sivin tu theesl whir yl keetchth twintyneen ind thn… and so forth.

Uh huh. I got off, decided to just schedule an Uber but… no internet. Well crap. I decided that despite my medical boot, and despite being sure that I was at least a mile from Appleton Tower where I perform, and despite wind so relentless that it was blowing off my false eyelashes, I would walk but... no internet so no map. I looked at my watch and saw that if a miracle didn't happen I was going to miss my show. So then, thankfully and because it's Scotland, a miracle did happen and not only was I able to schedule an Uber but he was nearby. That really counts for a couple of miracles.

I went to three shows after my show and... meh. That's the nature of things at Edinburgh—you pay your nickel and take your chance. There are 3,500 shows. The most exhausting part of my day is deciding what to see.

Sunday, August 10

I had such a terrific performance today. And the reason was that I had a huge, engaged audience and the energy between them and me was a perpetual motion machine—back and forth and back and forth.

And I saw a fabulous production titled Bury the Hatchet about Lizzy Borden's trial for killing her parents with a hatchet one morning in 1892. She was exonerated, but you did have to wonder. It was three actors playing a zillion parts, playing three stringed instruments, singing, dancing and changing costumes on stage. It was brilliant—a choreographed, creative spectacle that had me entirely engrossed. Seeing all this energy and creativity go into the most fascinating storytelling is simply and profoundly inspiring.

AND, today I got on a near-empty bus thanks to that rock band Oasis finally skipping town. Additionally the wind was reasonable enough that my false eyelashes stayed properly in place.

I talked to an Edinburgh resident about life here and mentioned that I would move here in a flash if it weren't for the weather. He said “The weather? This is the warmest summer we've had in years!” I was wearing a t-shirt, a sweatshirt, a hooded fleece, and drinking hot tea. It was cold. All a matter of perspective, I guess. He would have been miserably hot in Kona.