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Actors go for oddball venues at Edinburgh festival
2007-08-15
Actors are staging Shakespeare on a bouncy castle and comedy in a portable toilet as shows at the Edinburgh Fringe leave traditional theatres behind and move into a string of oddball venues. The world's biggest arts festival, which runs to August 27, is a must for enthusiasts of grassroots drama, but with audiences facing a choice of 2,000 shows performers need a clear selling point to pull in the crowds. A handful are already household names, a few win critics' prizes, some don costumes and risk ridicule handing out flyers in the city centre, while other actors hope punters will flock to an unusual performance space. Shows moving away from the traditional theatres and bars include "The Umbrella Girls: WC", in which an audience of eight crowds into a portable lavatory for an all-female sketch show inspired by women's toilet-time chatter. Despite cramped conditions, most audiences love the strange setting, said Emily Watson Howes, one of the stars of the show. "Because the subject matter is so much about privacy, the audience feel a bit sneaky, particularly men, because they don't usually get to go into ladies' loos," she said. "Sometimes people walk into the show expecting a normal toilet and they are met with blank faces. It's so funny -- they look absolutely appalled." The 26-year-old added that while it was "intense, stressful, crazy" trying to perform in a toilet, she was now hooked on odd venues and wanted to put on a show in a double decker bus being driven around Edinburgh next year. Another unexpected production is "Bouncy Castle Macbeth", a version of William Shakespeare's "Scottish play" performed on an inflatable castle by stumbling actors brandishing blow-up swords. Actor William Seaward said he came up with the wacky interpretation as he was thinking about how to stage Samuel Beckett's "Waiting For Godot" at a children's party in Argentina. Blow-up Beckett never got off the ground, but he applied the idea to Shakespeare and staged a version of Hamlet with inflatables last year. This year, he is playing Duncan and voices Banquo's ghost. "Banquo is being played by an inflatable man... his clothes have been coming off inexplicably over the last few days, and that makes the audience laugh," the 21-year-old said. "Malcolm (one of Macbeth's rivals) bopped his head as he was bouncing up and down and they loved that." But he denied his show was a gimmick, instead describing it as an "experiment". "It's trying to do it in a fresh perspective. It's lovely, it's a really good feeling," he said. "When I'm not on stage, I try and lurk behind the castle so I can hear the audience." It is not only light-hearted shows which are making use of unusual settings -- the 14th century Craigmillar Castle, once home to queen Elizabeth I's cousin and enemy Mary, Queen of Scots, is hosting a production of Jean Racine's "Phaedre". And the Spiegeltent, a mirrored hand-sewn pavilion detailed with velvet and brocade. Back in the 1930s the mobile venue hosted Marlene Dietrich: in this year's Fringe it will show cabaret acts, concerts and children's shows. Some actors say that offbeat venues can help audiences experience drama in a new and eye-opening way. "The Container", a play about five asylum seekers coming to Britain from Afghanistan, Turkey and Africa, is being staged on a storage boxes from the back of an articulated lorry set up in the city centre. Actor Mercy Ojelade said that the unusual venue of the show brought cast and audience face-to-face in a way that was rare. "The audience are seated literally next to the cast. There's no performance or audience space -- what's ours is yours and yours is mine and if you're not careful, I'll tread on your toes," the 25-year-old said. "I personally think it's fab. I love the fact that we the actors can't hide anything and the audience can't hide either."
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