FESTIVAL THEATRE PREVIEWS
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THE AGONY AND THE ECSTASY OF STEVE JOBS Taking a bite out of Apple
When he died in October last year more than one million followers flooded the Apple website, sharing their memories of Steve Jobs. Commentators hailed the man affectionately known as Apple’s Messiah. Author Mike Daisey took his fascination a step further, journeying to China to investigate the factories where millions make the iPods and iPhones Jobs created. The resulting smash hit show finds its way across the pond for this year’s Fringe, with actor Grant O’Rourke in the lead role.
‘The themes are much more universal than I first imagined,’ explains O’Rourke of Daisey’s controversial script. ‘The focus lies more on Jobs’ role in changing the world and our complicity in that. ‘If you own any electronic product this story is
relevant to you. It’s not necessarily a story of good and evil. But that doesn’t mean we can’t try to see the world, and our role in it, differently.’ (Anna Millar) ■ Gilded Balloon Teviot, 622 6555, 4–27 Aug (not 14), 2.15pm, £10–£11 (£8–£9). Previews until 3 Aug, £5.
THE RED HOURGLASS Scottish author attempts to overcome his fear of spiders
‘I’ve always been arachnophobic, it’s something that goes quite deep into my childhood,’ says Glenfiddich Scottish Writer of the Year Alan Bissett. ‘I’ve always been fascinated by spiders as well.’ This fear and fascination has led the author and actor to create The Red Hourglass, a theatre show
(supported by the National Theatre of Scotland) in which he performs the roles of no fewer than six spiders. ‘I can have my cake and it,’ he says. ‘I can have a show that explores the world of a spider, and also has something to say about society. People have phobias about spiders, so you can use them to discuss the way fear is socially constructed, and how we marginalise certain social groups.’ The six anthropomorphised characters have accents ranging from Venezuela, to the United States
and Scotland. This is, the writer comments, a matter of both ‘variety and authenticity’. A variety of accents keeps the piece interesting, both for him as a performer and, he hopes, for the audience. However, it’s also important to him that the accents reflect the origins of the creature concerned. The tarantula, for instance, comes from temperate climates. So, Bissett has opted to place his in Venezuela, giving him a colourful series of political possibilities. ‘With the whole Hugo Chavez socialist revolution there, you can bring in that subject matter as well.’’ And what of the title, The Red Hourglass? ‘One of my favourite books is The Red Hourglass by
Gordon Grice,’ he explains. ‘In that he writes about the hourglass figure of the black widow spider, and how its warning signal is for its body to turn red.’ (Mark Brown) ■ National Library of Scotland, 226 0000, 15–25 Aug (not 17), 7pm, £12 (£10).
CONFESSIONS OF A GRINDR ADDICT Playing the dating game, 21st century-style
What does a guy actually do on a date these days that doesn’t involve sex? This is the question posed by dark but comical one-man show, Confessions of a Grindr Addict, written and performed by Australian Gavin Roach. Grindr, for anyone unfamiliar, is a smartphone app geared towards gay, bi and curious guys looking to meet people in their area, using ‘geolocation’ to see who is in your neighbourhood (and, potentially soon, in your pants).
‘We open on Felix, who is getting ready to go
out for the night but freaking out because it’s the first time he’s gone on a date in over a year where he hasn’t met the guy using Grindr,’ Roach explains. Finding it hard to leave behind the safety of his trusted dating app, we see Felix weighing up the pros and cons of diving headfirst into the real dating world where you have to actually ‘meet’ and interact with non-pixilated people.
‘It’s unchartered territory for Felix, who is very overemotional, irrational and hyperactive, but also very loveable. I liken him to Peter Pan, if Pan grew up into a sassy gay man.’ (Lauren Mayberry) ■ Assembly Hall, 623 3030, 4–26 Aug (not 13), 9pm, £11–£12 (£10–£11). Previews 2 & 3 Aug, £8.
FLÂNEURS New play explores violence and intervention
If you witnessed an attack in the street, would you do something? Jenna Watt’s new one-woman play, Flâneurs, explores ‘the bystander effect’. It’s the phenomenon that occurs when a group of people see an emergency but nobody steps in.
‘The larger the crowd, the less likely it is that
anyone will intervene,’ says Watt. ‘The piece was originally inspired by a friend of mine who was attacked in London, and there were bystanders at the time, so it’s my exploration of what happened.’ Violence is important to the effect. If someone
simply trips and falls, passers-by stop to help, but there’s something about an attack, and a perpetrator, that makes people hesitate. And there are echoes of this in the way theatre works, with the audience as a large group, generally complicit in the action. Watt’s production hopes to make the most of that dynamic. ‘There’s a point in the play where the audience is asked to think about their relationship to a moment of violence . . . I’m hoping that they can see themselves in the show.’ (Charlotte Runcie) ■ Summerhall, 0845 874 3001, 5–26 Aug (not 17 & 18), 2pm, £8 (£6). Previews 3 & 4 Aug, £8 (£6).
76 THE LIST 2–9 Aug 2012