The three guest bloggers, © Karla Gowlett, Ellis Buckley
Theatre allows audiences to view history with a modern lens.
It can bring the past to life, as well as document the present.
At this year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe, there’s so much choice of what to see. But, if you’re wanting to look back in time for a new perspective on today, how about the following three productions? They give us their elevator pitches.
I Was A German – Clare Fraenkel
Theatre is such a joyful format for storytelling because of its immediacy. We’re all in the room together, and the audience contributes their own energy, whatever it is on the day!
I Was A German has two storylines: mine in the 2020s, and my grandad’s from the 1930s and 40s. I wanted my grandad’s narrative to feel almost like stepping into a film; to playfully take the audience into the past. His journey is supported by a projected world of shadow silhouettes and music, inspired by his story’s recurring theme of cinema. We puppeteered and filmed these images so I can interact with them live.
My narrative is grounded in the present to counterbalance those theatrical techniques. I break the fourth wall and engage the audience directly, to reduce the distancing effect that I sometimes feel when watching something historical. I’m a real person telling my grandad’s true story, in a way only possible in live performance.
I Was A German at ZOO Southside (Studio) from 1 to 24 August (not 12th) at 13:50
The City for Incurable Women – fish in a dress Theatre Company
Theatre is always now, and it’s inherently past. Between performer and audience, an idea unfolds in real time. Yet simultaneously, the stories explored are deeply linked to the past.
The City for Incurable Women tells the true story of a psychiatric hospital in 1880s Paris where women performed their “madness” onstage. Thinking about history, we automatically relate it to our understanding: The trope of mad women that was popularised in the 19th century (hair down, back arched, white nightie) can be traced to today. We feel it lingering in our own bodies. As we reconnect ourselves to that history, something resonates, and something shifts. And sometimes it is as simple as comparing the abusive “genius” doctor to the iconic high school villain Regina George from Mean Girls.
On stage, we reach out across time to each other, to the women from this story. It is comforting, enraging, and empowering.
The City of Incurable Women plays at Pleasance Courtyard (Upstairs) from 30 July to 25 August (not 12th) at 13:30.
Trouble, Struggle, Bubble and Squeak – Victoria Melody
I’m an anthropologist and I joined Britain’s enthusiasts and hobbyists, embedding myself with them for about four years, before making theatre about the worlds I’ve been part of.
I recently came across the 17th-century Diggers. They were a radical group who had been failed by the state, and occupied common land to grow food. Their manifesto was the beginning of socialism. I couldn’t believe how revolutionary they were, and that I’d never heard of them. So I joined a historical re-enactment society hoping to find people keeping that history alive, but I didn’t find the Diggers in the past. I found them in the present.
I found them in my day job on a council estate in east Brighton, where 375 years later, people are still fighting for land, food, and community care. Trouble, Struggle, Bubble and Squeak is about those unexpected links between then and now. It’s funny, hopeful, political, and rooted in real people doing extraordinary things.
Trouble, Struggle, Bubble and Squeak plays at Pleasance Courtyard (Above) from 31 July to 24 August (not 4th, 11th, 18th) at 14:15