Edinburgh Fringe - a short trip pt1
Day 1
Threshold
Starting at four o'clock, my three day adventure at the Fringe started with Threshold by 1929. This performace exemplifies the meaning of site specific performance. The Hunter family has invited the audience to the wedding celebrations at their family home. Leaving Edinburgh on a coach headed to a place unknown, we are subjected to what can only be a radio station from hell. After the uneasy journey setting the scene for an ambitious performance, we are welcomed off the coach by the Hunter family with a glass of bubbley outside the oldest inhabited house in Scotland. We are then faced with a choice that will shape the performance ahead.
The story unfolds as we chase, sneak, hunt, and perform with the lead of one or, at times, all of the Hunter family. The performance ends with an array of mishaps and family discoveries taking place in and around the house and grounds.
Beautiful, atmospheric, fun, and harrowing. Threshold has been described as not just theatre: "this is an event which happens around you – only one which a very talented company have carefully contrived into being. I’d happily let them carry me over the Threshold into their world every night for the rest of the run" by Emily P in the Edinburgh Spotlight
1929 just keep getting better...
Sub Rosa
Sub Rosa had an interesting script, an errie atmosphere, and was extrememly well performed. However, this performance seems confused and unable to pay off. Firstly, it is performed (site specifically) in a Freemason's lodge in Edinburgh's new town, and there is a contradiction in terms of production: the lodge is where the performance takes place, but after being heavily informed about the lodge at its history it seems that is all we are allowed to see and experience it! The performance almost ignores its setting and chooses instead to theatrise its surroundings using excessive stage lighting, props, setting, and draps. One could pose that this performance in contrast is site unspecific an example of theatre that prehaps still belongs in one?
My second problem is that of interactivity. Features of other site specific might be an exploration of the space, an interaction with the actors and other audience members, or the explicit use of space and setting. However, again harking back to the traditional setting of the theatre in Sub Rosa has ushers that lead you around the lodge where you are sat and passively experience another monologue regardless or time, space and circumstance.
Apart from the great cast and some horrific imagery, truely disappointing.
