I’m a week late on this, and I apologize. I spent the last week of my time in Edinburgh with decision paralysis about how I should spend the last week in Edinburgh — the week of not having to rush out at 3:15 PM to grab the 3:22 PM bus to get to my venue at 4:00 PM to check in on how the children's clown/magician was doing and use his varying audience numbers and start time to guess the turnaround time I’d have and thus the success of that day’s show.
It was too late to book a reasonable place to go for a week somewhere else in Scotland. I was terribly afraid I was abusing the grace of my hosts, who insisted it was no trouble at all if I hung around another week. Flights back to Berlin were ghastly at the beginning of last week, and my subletter begged to extend a few days. So I spent a week working remotely and sleeping in a twin bed (which you think I’d hate but honestly was just fine) one last week For Funsies and wondering why I had so much time in the evenings.
I was not able to write about Fringe last week because I was in Fringe afterglow and I wasn’t sure I liked it. It took me a while to realize why I wasn’t “totally chuffed” about Fringe this year. Two people who I associate most strongly with Edinburgh missed my show. My host from last year had the amazing opportunity to Become a Grandmother and spent time in Berlin with her son, his wife, (my friends!) and their new child (who will be my friend!). It just happened to be during the bulk of my show. Another friend I met last year insisted he’d come the final week, ensuring he’d catch the best version of the show (not wrong!), but ended up being ill the whole stretch.
This does not, however, put a pall on the phenomenal humans who DID come to see the show! Friends with shows, friends traveling through, a friend from LA who just APPEARED ten minutes before my show, cousins of friends, TWO fellow Notre Dame alumni from different generations, friends from London, and my hosts Ben and Haley. Having my McGlinn Hall friend Britt in the audience for two shows, laughing loud and sobbing at all the right parts, was the encouragement I needed at a crucial moment. And the winner for Most Shows Attended goes to Haley, who not only survived me living with her for a month and speaking in a baby voice to her two dogs with a near constant mumble, but sat through me talking about the night before I went to high school and my back fat and my mom’s funeral dance party three times. Haley is our MVP.
A few people have asked me how it’s been, talking about my mom’s death every day for a month. I didn’t really clock it. It’s a story I’ve told so many times that I can do it without emotion — which is how it slipped into the show. I said Susie DePrez multiple times a day, invoking her presence and her blessing, ensuring that everyone leaving would know her name. But I did it between jokes and songs. Nothing fills my cup as much as being on stage with jokes and songs. After every show I felt energized, not depleted. Fringe is the most emotionally stable month I get, because it's the month in which I live what I consider My True Vocation every day.
When it ended, I was a dog without a bone. Now I return to doing only a day job and staring down the barrel at an opera career that still lingers in between “freelance” and “yeah I don’t really want to spend another €350 on a cattle call or an audition class that is gatekeeping a chance to sing for a casting director.” One thing I’ve noticed this month: when I see the opera people doing the opera things, online I’m not moved... at all. I just did a month of doing a solo comedy cabaret show. I’m good, baby.
This is important information, I think. Would I rather be doing a comedy show with opera in it than doing an opera? Here’s the thought experiment: “Would you rather sing in a nice house in a great costume for 300 people who have access to and knowledge of opera, or sing in a sticky bar with mismatched chairs for 30 people who have never been to an opera but are willing to be moved?”
It’s not even a question for me. People had tears in their eyes after “O mio babino caro,” the lowest of the low fruit. TEARS! Talk about finding where there is a need.
In the course of my show, I had three non-friend groups return from last year. The first was a couple headed by Ann who insisted I remembered her and who brought her sister. She loved it, again. The second was a young couple from London, who told me this is also their second Fringe. They took a chance on me last year and were happy to see I was doing a show again. The third was a family with a teenage girl. The dad told me that last year they brought a daughter and son and spent the year listening to opera thinking about what I’d said. They brought their other daughter this year to hear some opera. The dad ran to find me after the show to say he was sorry for my loss, they had no idea I was going through that last year, and that it really meant something to him.
I had one woman who loves opera bring her friends because it was her birthday. I sang her Happy Birthday during the show. When she walked out, she was still crying, and handed me a £50 note.
These are the interactions that remind me what it was like when I was a teacher, which was, arguably, the most impactful and Heaven-adjacent work I’ve done with my life. I loved being a teacher but I knew it wasn’t forever. This month has held so many “Kairos” moments that I quickly brushed aside in order to survive the day and get on with the next. It’s only upon reflection, this past weekend, that I’m able to look back at the trees within the wood and admire them.
I learned a lot more about Fringe itself, the machine, this year. It’s mostly a London-to-UK-touring pipeline for British comics to put stuff in front of the British press. There’s a formula to “working it,” and a formula for a good Fringe show, neither of which really mean a lot for comedians who work outside of this market. The general perception is that people who bring shows to Fringe are those who can afford to take a month off and drop thousands of dollars on funding a show, so it’s not viewed by a lot of Brits as the great artistic, egalitarian playground my friends and I consider it to be. I heard an offhand joke about the kind of people who bring a show to Fringe being Oxford grads who were in an improv club.
On the flipside, comics from Berlin and Cologne and Vienna who come to Fringe tend to do comedy professionally year-round and budget for this, or bank vacation days, or work remote (me!), and most stay with friends or live in dorms 45 min out of town to save money. We use the time and space to get stage time or put our shows up before taking them back to Europe, as opposed to pitching them to the UK circut. When I came last year, I rented out my apartment in Berlin for the cost of my room in Edinburgh. I get the impression most comics at Fringe from London live in shared flats (paying what I pay!), which makes renting it 1:1 harder. It’s also very clear that most people in the UK are feeling what they call the “cost of living crisis,” a phrase I must have heard three times a day. I’m curious if other comedians got different vibes. You are MOST welcome to comment on this blog!
I find that British audiences, which are by far the bulk of attendees, have a very particular sense of humor, or what I call, “jokes about class and words.” When you’ve got a country with a terrifyingly persistent class structure and accents that are so regional they’re almost varied by neighborhood, you’ve got a lot to work with! What it means is that a) I must adjust material when I get here and b) I must adjust jokes back to general-EU-consumption. Different people have different experiences, but that’s been mine.
On Wednesday this past week I caved and pulled the trigger on two nights in a B&B in the Highlands, in a town called Kingussie, Head of the Pine Forest, pronounced kin-yoo-see, or, as every single person here has said, “kinyooseeheadofthepineforest.” You can also remember it because of how the seven-year-old playing the organ introduced herself to me after mass at the wee Catholic church I went to on Sunday: Lucy from Kingussie.
On Saturday I did a hike/walk/wandern up to Creag Bheag, which is where the beacons of Gondor were lit. I can stretch a 2 hour hike into 4.5 hours, no problemo, and I made full use of my glacial pace to calm down, breathe, think, pray, speak to trees and bugs, and take two hundred photos. I prefer to hike by myself so that when I spend 20 minutes getting the perfect shot of something or lie on my back on a bench and eat cheese and hum Taylor Swift there is no one to bother me or move me along. I talk to myself a lot. I hold entire conversations with flowers. I am quite pleased to be By Myself in the Wilds.
It’s a great way to re-regulate my emotional heart, to follow the threads of thoughts out, and to recognize what I love, what I’m looking for, and what my next steps may be.
My run was far more successful than my emotions the past week would have me believe. I didn’t get a professional reviewer, despite two booking a ticket, but few people I know did. I was, however, interviewed live on BBC News. I got to take over friendership of Ben and Haley, Formerly Friends of Danny, Now Friends of Mine. I ransacked the charity shops. I must have gone to at least twenty in Edinburgh, two in Stirling, and two in Kingussie. I have the £2 book haul to prove it! I met four beloved authors at the BookFest. I saw some amazing comedy. And I got to sing every day.
I’ll end with my closing line from the show: You have one wild and precious life, and no matter your age, your wealth, or your home, you have an opportunity today, from the moment you leave the bar, to be your full self.
Be as loud as you want.
I’ve enjoyed writting this newsletter a whole lot, and I think I might keep doing it! Look out for a more regular publishing clip from me.
Was pleasantly surprised to see a notification in my inbox for your Substack and enjoyed hearing your stories again. Thanks for sharing them. Wishing you're well and many rich adventures for you with whatever's ahead :-).