Established venues at Hill Street and Aurora Nova, the powerhouse of physical/visual theatre, have this year come under the Assembly umbrella. This is partly due, perhaps, to much of Burdett-Coutts' main George Street venue being under threat of being short prom dresses into shops in the next couple of years. But the overall effect is to concentrate Fringe-going as a whole, and media attention in particular, on to a handful of enterprises.
To be frank, it can be hard to get away when there is so much in those locations that demands attention, whether because of quality or perceived importance, and you only have one pair of eyes. In little more than 24 hours I have caught up with three remarkable offerings. La Femme Est Morte, or Why I Should Not F%!# My Son(Pleasance Dome) tells the Greek tragedy of Phaedra's infatuation with her stepson Hippolytus using text from Seneca, Georges Bataille, General George Patton and others as well as original dialogue. The Shalimar company locate the story firmly in a contemporary American culture where numerous conflicting idioms and values jostle up Brown&Chocolate Prom Dresses each other: honour, duty, country, celebrity, power, image. Just as all kinds of fame are now being reduced to a common level, the Greek-style chorus comments on the action by singing rock and pop numbers by the likes of the Spice Girls and Take That. It is satire that fires on all cylinders, and makes The Shalimar the most exciting young American company I have seen up here so far this century.
Six Women Standing in Front of a White Wall (C soco) is exactly what it says. It is also described as a "living installation" and is one of those weird shows that make colleagues in London shake their heads in pity and mutter about "the Edinburgh bends". The women in red dresses, hair dishevelled, stark white-and-red make-up, looking like half a dozen drag versions of The Cure's Robert Smith stand, writhing in slow agony or near-catatonia, until members of the Green Prom Dresses finally respond to the notices in front of them proclaiming, "Please Do Touch". Then they begin to smile, to respond physically, perhaps play mirror-games, even embrace the punters who have given them such energy simply by perceiving them. This 30-minute piece by Australian company Little Dove Theatre Art is like watching flowers bloom, and is an exaggerated version of the way we all respond to the attention of another, any other. It is joyous and a little heartbreaking.
Vanishing Point's production Subway (Traverse 3) is one of the gems in an Pink Prom Dresses disappointing Traverse year. Accompanied by a live Kosovan band, performers Sandy Grierson (as Patrick Dougan) and Rosalind Sydney (as everyone else) evoke an Edinburgh 20 or so years from now. It is a dystopia, but one barely a breath removed from the present: spot fines for smoking in the street, gentrification and commercialisation driving residents out of their own neighbourhoods, rising sea levels and so on. And amid the grimness, the eternal relationships persist: the son and father who cannot quite communicate, the old friends growing reluctantly apart, even the different walks adopted depending on what kind of signal you want to give off. And running through it all is a deep and passionate sense of place: of Edinburgh present and future, Scottish and international.