Writer: Edward Einhorn
Director: Edward Einhorn
If the essence of the Fringe is a place that provides a platform for off the wall quirky shows that experiment with form and convention and cover niche topics, then The Marriage of Alice B Toklas by Gertrude Stein shows that the spirit of the Fringe is still alive and well.
This American production consists of four actors pretending to be Alice B Toklas, Gertrude Stein, Pablo Picasso and Ernest Hemingway all pretending to be other people including themselves.
This convention, echoing some of Stein’s own work, is announced and established at the start of Act 1 – yes, there are two acts to the play and a two minute break in between them – by Barsha pretending to be Stein and Alyssa Simon pretending to be Toklas. They state that they will also be pretending to be each other pretending to be them.
The setting is their wedding in Paris in the interwar years, attended by a variety of literary and artistic society members residing in the city at the time. As with the opening of the play, each individual scene begins with a description of the topic and the often multiple people each of the pretend people will be pretending to be.
If it sounds confusing, at times it is. If it sounds pretentious, at times it also is. Early sections of the first act come across as a kind of intellectual improv show with roles and topics that the four have been asked to make a scene from before switching to another role and another topic. It’s as if Whose Line is it Anyway had been devised by Kelsey Grammar performing as Dr Frasier Crane.
But it is also fiendishly clever and both funny and contemplative as they wrestle with questions such as what genius is, the effect of success on talent, and how marriage and people shape identity.
There are running jokes throughout, most of which centre around Hemingway’s claim to be a genius, alongside the bullfighter soldier persona that accompanied his passage from literary great to serial drinker and womaniser, or Picasso’s multiple wives and mistresses.
At an hour and twenty minutes, Barsha and Simon, along with Jenny Lee Mitchell and Grant Neale as Picasso and Hemingway, directed by scriptwriter Edward Einhorn, have to work hard to expand on the basic premise of the show and stay entertaining, but they succeed in doing this.
In a Fringe dominated more and more by shows with a clear eye on mass market success, or that tackle set-piece topics in often formulaic ways, it is refreshing to find something truly innovative and distinctive. It may not be perfect, but it is a show that illustrates all that the Fringe can aspire to be.
Runs until 25 August (not 19th)
