Fringe Review: 8:8
Eight performers, eight audience members, eight individual stories
8:8, Summerhall, times vary, until August 25.
One of the opportunities of the Fringe is to find something different, something well out of your comfort zone.
8:8 features eight cast members performing to an audience of eight people.
It lasts just 25 minutes, starting in absolute silence and ending with the cast leaving you in the empty former woman's locker room in the basement of the venue.
The room is empty save for two rows of eight chairs, We sit, the cast come in and stand facing us in total silence for a prolonged period.
They turn to the left and then right, and go through choreographed sequences all without speaking before pulling up their chairs and facing the audience to introduce themselves and tell their stories which, they say, are true, or partly true.
Each actor then moves directly in front of one audience member, places headphones on them and watches as they hear the rest of the story.
At the end, they leave the room, and you are left with your own thoughts.
It's strange, and slightly disconcerting - how do you maintain eye contact with someone sitting barely two feet in front of you while listening to their story, and what do you take from it when you have no opportunity to interact?
Do we judge or do we connect? Or both?
The audience remains passive throughout. All eight of them hear individual stories, and there is no opportunity to explore them further or figure out what if anything, was true.
At 25 minutes long, and a fair part of that in total silence, it definitely throws up more questions than answers.
Show info HERE
8:8, Summerhall, times vary, until August 25.One of the opportunities of the Fringe is to find something different, something well out of your comfort zone.
8:8 features eight cast members performing to an audience of eight people.
It lasts just 25 minutes, starting in absolute silence and ending with the cast leaving you in the empty former woman's locker room in the basement of the venue.
The room is empty save for two rows of eight chairs, We sit, the cast come in and stand facing us in total silence for a prolonged period.
They turn to the left and then right, and go through choreographed sequences all without speaking before pulling up their chairs and facing the audience to introduce themselves and tell their stories which, they say, are true, or partly true.
Each actor then moves directly in front of one audience member, places headphones on them and watches as they hear the rest of the story.
At the end, they leave the room, and you are left with your own thoughts.
It's strange, and slightly disconcerting - how do you maintain eye contact with someone sitting barely two feet in front of you while listening to their story, and what do you take from it when you have no opportunity to interact?
Do we judge or do we connect? Or both?
The audience remains passive throughout. All eight of them hear individual stories, and there is no opportunity to explore them further or figure out what if anything, was true.
At 25 minutes long, and a fair part of that in total silence, it definitely throws up more questions than answers.
Show info HERE
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