300 Paintings Summerhall (Venue 26), until 26 August ★ ★★★ Sam Kissajukian begins by telling us how three years ago he gave up the stand-up comedy game on a whim and decided to try to make it as an artist instead. Why not? After all, surely very few experiments could have funnier results than a mid-thirties career change from one thing you’re unlikely to become spectacularly successful to another with the same prospects – and one which you’re also entirely untrained in. His parents nearly had a meltdown, of course, but he thought it seemed like a great idea and pressed on.
The Sydney-based Kissajukian gets an essential spoiler very early in the show, which is that he eventually quit hunting for fame in the art world and returned to his first love. That’s apparent from the opening moments of his solo monologue, which has all the hallmarks of a stand-up set and some good punchlines to match. He tells us his story, about how he essentially “completed modern art” in the first month, composing abstract and ill-received portraits of friends and colleagues, experiencing his own ‘blue period’, and then getting his ‘final’ masterpiece out of the way early (added topicality points for the Last Supper reference).
On he goes, redoing his own work in miniature, talking hedge funds into giving him money and turning it down because it’s not enough, building a business website which is a piece of baffling conceptual art in its own right, and rounding 2021 out making painting after painting, before a mental and physical crash in the New Year. All the time, a quirky and very enjoyable piece about the obsession, bravado and maverick thinking of exploring the creative instinct has been building to something deeper, a revealing, strikingly delivered portrait of Kissajukian’s own bipolar disorder. His art, by the way, is very good, and it also has its own exhibition named Paintings of Modernia in Summerhall this month.
David Pollock 1 in a Chameleon Summerhall (Venue 26), until 11 August ★ ★★ Narie Foster was once on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list, a successful up-and-coming entrepreneur based in New York. Now she’s in Edinburgh dressed as a chameleon, putting on “a weird Fringe show which probably should have been a TED Talk”. She doesn’t sound disappointed by this, in fact her tone of arch self-deprecation is one of a number of winning factors about her one-woman show, and the laughter is all very much with her during it.
Mimicking the traits and characteristics of a chameleon with amusing precision, Foster’s point is about adapting to the roles we take on or are given in order to blend in. She tells us about her background (a mix of American, Canadian, Thai and Irish) and about her life and her career with crisp comic timing, unselfconscious physicality and personable ease when tackling crowdwork. In particular, an observational section about the body language of the audience and how it feels to be self-conscious as an observer is intimate and amusingly well-worked (especially during the performance I witnessed, where she ad-libbed well through the moment latecomers walked in and had to edge past her as she stood at the back of the room).
It’s a refreshing and affirmative show about finding your place in the world, from a performer who is very comfortable in her own skin, even when she’s shedding it. David Pollock Lonesome Tonight theSpace @ Symposium Hall - Annexe (43), until 13 August ★ ★★ Chris and Anya are breaking up. Forever.
Well, she didn’t say forever, exactly, but that’s what Chris heard. As a result, he’s become a recluse, ignoring his best friend Len and his repeated attempts to reach out. Lonesome Tonight starts with Len reluctantly coming over - in his professional capacity as an Elvis impersonator, of course - after Chris finally calls him back one night.
The pair’s friendship is the entirely-believable heart of the show: from the moment Len grumpily strides onstage in his off-brand Elvis jumpsuit (he’s even got the shoes, albeit not blue suede), we’re wholly invested in their relationship. What follows is a delightful blend of snappy dialogue and absurdist humour: as the night progresses, Chris and the audience are relentlessly shuttled between his apartment and trippy dream sequences in which Anya berates him for his inadequacy. Lonesome Tonight packs in plenty of breathing room, too - towards the end of the show, Chris and Len have a touching - and surprisingly philosophical - discussion about dreams and what it means to perform for others your whole life.
Of course, this is the real world, in which perfect endings are hard to come by: at the end of the 50 minutes, only one of Chris’s relationships has been salvaged. But it’s the one we were rooting for all along. Ariane Branigan 3 Couples, 2 Breakups, 1 Barbie and The Berlin Wall C venues | C aquila (Venue 21), until 10 August ★ ★★ There’s a bracing discipline to this absurdist play by Georgie Dettmer that examines love and all its aspects.
It’s necessary too as seven teenagers (and a Barbie doll) approach the subject at hand in a sideways manner with nicely choreographed vignettes that in less capable hands could amount to little more than a hill of beans. This formalism imparted by director Tim Coker helps assure the audience that this is, indeed, a carefully structured piece rather than a series of acting exercises. It’s rigorously performed by the Rugby-based Macready Theatre Young Actors Company as the boiler-suit clad performers quickly win over your confidence mixing reminiscences of breakups and heartache with the studied air of popular science lecturers.
This ultimately leads to employing two unsuspecting audience members as actors in a very funny scripted first date scenario. However, there’s also a curiously moving passage relating to Eija-Riitta, the Swedish woman who fell in love with and married the Berlin Wall. Mapping the cartography of the human heart often means that this necessarily offers more questions than answers but it does manage to successfully convey a quiet sense of wonder.
Rory Ford Paper Swans Pleasance Courtyard (Upstairs), until 25 August ★ ★★ A girl (Vyte Garriga) sits beside a frozen lake in a closed park, folding paper swans. It is the middle of the night. She doesn't know how she got there - only that she cannot leave.
When a guard (Daniel Chrisostomou) happens upon this girl, the two engage in a power struggle, shown through stylised sequences of movement reminiscent of contemporary greats like Complicité, Frantic Assembly, and DV8. Echoing the tenor of canonical fairytales, such as by Hans Christian Andersen, and classical ballet, Flabbergast Theatre draws on the image of the swan to evoke themes of oppression and resistance. The effect of the minimalist set (designed by Valentina Turtur), with its fluorescent lights and flight of white swans, is also gestural.
The scene seems too subtle, however — here, laws of physics do not hold, and a greater sense of gravity is needed to contain the narrative as time progresses. Perhaps, the company might consider staging Paper Swans on a grander scale (thereby amplifying its more surrealist leanings) or denuding it of theatrical elements entirely, the better to spotlight the behaviour of this story, which is as artfully constructed and precise as a piece of origami, with events folding and unfolding continually. Josephine Balfour-Oatts Circus, Break! C ARTS // C Venues // C aurora, until 11 August ★ ★ When a safety inspector (Graham Elwell) is called to interview a circus troupe after a series of unfortunate accidents, the company pulls together in an attempt to prevent the closure of their big top.
Replete with mischievousness, misunderstandings and misconceptions, Circus, Break! has all the makings of a tight-knit skit. As it is, the production is more fluff than farce, but there’s wit to be found in the character of the clown (Maddy May Devine), who communicates exclusively using mime and a metal horn, and demonstrates the potential to command a show of their own. Josephine Balfour-Oatts.
