ADVENTURES IN MENSTRUATING // Chella Quint

Halfway through her (ahem) bloody brilliant show about periods, Chella Quint drops an amazing fact that makes the audience gasp. In E. Nesbit’s classic Victorian story The Railway Children, a group of kids alert a train driver to stop by taking off their red flannel petticoats and waving them in the air. The reason they were red, says Quint, is to absorb and disguise the blood from their periods, which were allowed to run freely down their legs.
 
It’s not the only fascinating fact we learn. For example, it’s a myth that bears and sharks are more likely to attack menstruating women. And touching mayonnaise, tomato sauce or milk while you’ve got the painters in - depending on whether you live in France, Italy or India - won’t lead to culinary disaster. But it is true that Victorian doctors believed that female behaviour was affected by the womb travelling around the body, hence the term ‘hysteria’ from the Greek word hyster, meaning uterus. (Although the idea that the treatment for this condition was stimulation to orgasm with impressively-designed mechanical vibrators is actually a bit of a myth).
 
Delving through advertising archives dating back to the 1920s, Quint explores the creation of modern myths about menstruation. We can thank the Mad Men of ad-land for the idea that periods are shameful, embarrassing and unhygienic. In her role as an educator, Chella was shocked to discover that many teenagers think that periods are blue, rather than blood red, after years of advertising blue-washing. We’ll all be familiar with blue liquid poured coyly on to pads, sky blue branding and ‘discrete’ floral packaging abound. It wasn’t until 2011 that a sanitary product ad even featured a delicate spot of stylised red, and we had to wait until this year to see real (non-menstrual) blood in a commercial.
 
I’m not sure every woman is quite ready to wear the red, blobby Stains™ badges and jewellery that Quint has designed (aka ‘leak chic’) aiming to turn embarrassment into a badge of honour. But as she says, periods can be private but they don’t have to be secret. We bloody well need to talk about them.

- KA

Adventures in Menstruating is on at 18:40 in the Banshee Labyrinth on 13th-15th, 17th-22nd and 24th-28th August Audio Description, BSL, Relaxed Performance - https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/adventures-in-menstruating-with-chella-quint

Period Positive website: https://periodpositive.wordpress.com

Stains™ Leak Chic: http://www.stainstm.com/

BBC Radio 4 documentary, A Bleeding Shame: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07glw8b

'How I made the first feminine hygiene ad ever to feature blood': http://jezebel.com/5856336/how-i-made-the-first-feminine-hygiene-ad-to-show-blood

New Bodyform period ad uses actual blood and it’s amazing: http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2016/06/09/period-commercial-blood_n_10377890.html

No, no, no! The Victorians didn’t invent the vibrator: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/nov/10/victorians-invent-vibrator-orgasms-women-doctors-fantasy

TRACING GRACE // OffTheWallTheatreCo

Sixteen people are diagnosed with encephalitis – severe brain inflammation – every day in the UK, yet most of the public have never heard of it. Based on the real life experiences of writer and director Annie Eves, whose sister Grace was diagnosed with the condition at just three weeks old, Tracing Grace aims to open our eyes to the existence of encephalitis and the challenges of living with its long-term impact.
 
Making such a personal piece about such a serious but poorly-understood condition is a brave move, and the production has benefited from the input of Dr Ava Easton, CEO of the Encephalitis Society. As explained at the beginning of the show, the cause of encephalitis is unknown, although it’s related to infection in the body. Its effects are equally mysterious and unpredictable. In the case of Grace, who we follow from childhood through to her current age of 18, it’s described as a “headache that never stops”, punctuated by distressing fits and angry, screaming outbursts. Her family – mum, dad and Annie, portrayed both as a child and an adult – bear it all with loving fortitude, even when things turn ugly and violent.
 
We witness Grace’s towering fury at not having exactly the right sandwich filling (Laughing Cow cheese spread and jam), and her frustration at being unable to understand why she isn’t like other kids. We also meet Annie’s well-meaning but daffy social worker, nicknamed Mental Gentle, highlighting how support for families can fall woefully short in the face of such difficult circumstances. Yet despite the life-threatening fits and the increasing challenges of caring for Grace as she grows into adulthood, the play ends with a family decision to keep her at home rather than sending her into residential care. I cannot help but wish them all well for the future, whatever that looks like.

- KA

The current run of Tracing Grace at Paradise in the Vault has now finished.  https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/tracing-grace
 
More information and support is available from the Encephalitis Society: http://www.encephalitis.info/

Q &A with writer and director Annie Eves: http://www.encephalitis.info/awareness/tracinggrace/

Brain on Fire – a Naked Scientists podcast focusing on brain inflammation: http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/podcasts/show/20150324/

TRIPLE THREAT // Lucy McCormick

McCormick and her Girl Squad boys run amuck in this whistlestop of the New Testament: as an affirmation of agency over our queer/female bodies, and in defiance of an ecclesiastical canon of morality politics and re/oppression.

Triple Threat drives McCormick’s indefatigable lack of inhibition right into our societal schemata of disgust, offense and body-squeamishness – in this country historically interwoven with Christian teaching and the influence of the Church. Her retelling of the story of Doubting Thomas - ‘reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side’ (John 20:27, King James) – culminates in anal digital penetration. We applaud the hilarity and the shock – can you believe she took it that far?? – but accept as comic foil the actual scriptural basis, where Jesus invites Thomas to put his hands inside the still-gaping wounds from his crucifixion. An authentic restaging of that passage would probably be a bit much for even the most bloodwork-hardened Fringe-goer.

For all the prudishness of their most ardent followers, religious texts are awash with bodily functions, pain, blood and sex. Their rituals provide ripe ground for reappropriation, by and for the bodies marginalised and policed by their archaic, literal interpretation. This reappropriation is especially urgent in the work of queer artists, such as Ron Athey whose performance offers abject resistance to the US government’s (lack of) response to the 80s/90s HIV epidemic. Deploying different devices and affects, Triple Threat makes a playground of the stand-off between religious conservatism and queer and women’s sexualities and bodies; as necessary as ever with religious institutions and individuals still lobbying “pro-life” but against the availability of PrEP.

- HM

Triple Threat is on at 20.10 at Underbelly Cowgate until August 28th (not 15th or 22nd). Hearing Loop, BSL - https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/lucy-mccormick-triple-threat

On GETINTHEBACKOFTHEVAN, the performance collective McCormick constitues one third of: http://www.getinthebackofthevan.com/the-van/

Owen Jones in The Guardian on PrEP and valuing gay lives: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/02/nhs-prep-hiv-drugs-gay-mens-lives

The Herald on the Church's blocking of efforts to halt the spread of AIDS in the 80s: http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/14631879.Churches_opposed_efforts_to_halt_AIDS_deaths_in_1980s_Scotland__secret_papers_reveal/

Blog on the policing of women’s bodies and modesty, on Patheos (dedicated to discussion of issues around faith): www.patheos.com/blogs/nolongerquivering/2012/12/modesty-body-policing-and-rape-culture-connecting-the-dots/

Pleading in the Blood, on the performance work of Ron Athey: http://www.thisisliveart.co.uk/publishing/pleading-in-the-blood-the-art-of-ron-athey

TUMOUR HAS IT // Karen Hobbs

They say write what you know (except when they say not to), so if a performer is diagnosed with a serious illness, they will inevitably consider using it as the basis of a show. For Karen Hobbs, her experience of cervical cancer became her “usp” (unique selling point) and she has created Tumour Has It to tell the full story.

Cancer comes with a ready-made narrative structure. There's the back-story (life before cancer), an inciting incident (diagnosis), challenges and solutions (testing and treatment), a clear hero (the performer), an even clearer antagonist (the cancer, which Hobbs named Svetlana), an inner struggle - literally - where the stakes couldn't be higher, and some degree of resolution at the end. So the question is not what story to tell but how to tell it: which metaphors to invest in, and which to reject. At one point, Hobbs appears as a boxer, complete with audio of sports channel-style commentators - but the fight against cancer never starts because there is nothing there for her to punch.

Through the show, Hobbs regularly says “Thank you for coming” to the audience. It seems to reflect the changes she went through, as if each step generated a slightly different Karen Hobbs who must introduce herself anew. There are obvious physical changes by the end of the story, due to the surgery to remove the tumour, but her attitude and mindset have changed as well. Telling this story isn't just about raising awareness or encouraging people to go for a smear test when invited, although this is clearly an important part of her motivation for doing it; telling this story also helps Hobbs reassert control after both body and mind have been hijacked by cancer.

- MR

Tumour Has It is on at 14.50 at Underbelly Med Quad until August 29th (not 17th). Wheelchair Access, Wheelchair Accessible Toilets - https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/karen-hobbs-tumour-has-it

Karen Hobbs’s blog: https://quarterlifecancer.com/

A Cancer Research UK blogpost on how metaphors for cancer that involve fighting or war can be motivational but also harmful: http://scienceblog.cancerresearchuk.org/2015/09/28/may-i-take-your-metaphor-how-we-talk-about-cancer/

The Eve Appeal supports awareness of and research into gynaecological cancers: https://eveappeal.org.uk/

LOVELY LADY LUMP // Lana Schwarcz

Lana Schwarcz says she hates the concept of the “cancer journey”. After all, she wasn't going anywhere, and there was no chance of leaving the breast cancer behind. Nevertheless, she acknowledges the irony of cancer providing a good story and comedic material for her show, Lovely Lady Lump.

Familiar narrative elements resonate with anyone who has experience of cancer: the way medical professionals communicate “good news and bad news”; inappropriate songs in the MRI scanner (Queen’s “Who wants to live forever”, anyone?); tests and treatments that strip privacy and intimacy from your body. A recurring motif in Schwarcz’s show is when she stands topless, arms above her head, in position for radiotherapy, and tells the hospital staff jokes. As she tells us, by now she is entirely comfortable baring her breasts in front of strangers.

Schwarcz begins by asking the audience to raise their hands if they have cancer or have survived it, or if they know someone who has. As well as letting her gauge who she is performing for, it allows even someone with little or no knowledge of cancer to see that there are others here who do share these experiences. It brings the audience together, shifting our different perspectives towards each other. Theorist Victor Turner called such a collective state "communitas" - there is a shared understanding, which means we are here not to discover a new story but to collectively bear witness to another person who has lived through it. By the end of the show, Schwarcz rediscovers the journey metaphor and decides to own it. An important part of her journey, it seems, was accepting that she was on one.

- MR

Lovely Lady Lump is on at 16.00 at Gilded Balloon Teviot until August 29th (not 15th). Wheelchair Access, Level Access, Wheelchair Accessible Toilets - https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/lovely-lady-lump

Narrative medicine is an emerging field of research that recognises the significance of the stories people tell about their own illnesses: http://sps.columbia.edu/narrative-medicine

Here is an interesting discussion of cancer, rites and communitas: http://bulletin.hds.harvard.edu/articles/winterspring2013/cancer-rites-and-remission-society

Elena Semino, professor of linguistics and verbal art, discussing her research into journey and battle metaphors in cancer: http://theconversation.com/whether-you-battle-cancer-or-experience-a-journey-is-an-individual-choice-39142

COME WITH ME // Helen Duff

In a world where magazine headlines scream about ever more exciting ways to achieve the heady heights of sexual pleasure, a comedy show based on the inability to hit the ‘big O’ is an oddity. The causes are many and varied, ranging from the physical impacts of health conditions, drugs or the menopause, to psychological issues such as fear or anxiety. In fact, depending on which set of figures you believe, somewhere between five and 12 per cent of women suffer from anorgasmia – the inability to experience an orgasm despite receiving sexual stimulation. Comedian Helen Duff is one of them, and turns what could be a frustrating situation into a frank and funny show climaxing with an anarchic group experience.  
 
Over the course of an hour, she morphs from the human embodiment of a sperm – clad in blue raincoat and leggings – through to a larger-than-life vulva complete with inexplicable Yorkshire accent, removable hair and prominent clitoris (a knitted pink bobble-hat). Together, we are aiming to recreate the mystery of the female orgasm. Our template for this exercise is a survey Duff has carried out, asking people to describe their experiences of pleasure. An all over sneeze combined with a really good itch. The feeling of having Belgian chocolate licked off your genitals. Like eating eight mangoes all at once. Almost dying. Like riding a unicorn through the sky. In the absence of unicorns, mangoes and chocolate, Duff hands out tools to the audience to help us come together: packets of ginger nuts, eight bananas, feather dusters and pots of bubble mixture.
 
By the end of the show, she’s riding across the cramped stage on the back of a burly man wearing a unicorn horn, beaten on the bottom by packets of biscuits and gagging on half-chewed bananas. The result is a breathless, sweaty mess, and judging by the look on Duff’s face, she seemed to enjoy it as much as we did.

- KA 

Come With Me is on at 17.45 at Pleasance That until August 19th (not 15th). Wheelchair Access, Level Access, Hearing Loop - https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/helen-duff-come-with-me

Information about anorgasmia: http://www.lanarkshiresexualhealth.org/unable-to-orgasm-anorgasmia/

In Psychology Today - 'Help! I can’t have an orgasm!': https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/save-your-sex-life/201111/help-i-cant-have-orgasm

OUTSIDE THE BOX - A LIVE SHOW ABOUT DEATH / Liz Rothschild

“Talking about sex doesn’t make you pregnant, talking about death doesn’t make you die.” This quote from Jane Duncan Rogers appears on the flyer for Liz Rothschild’s thought-provoking and unexpectedly jolly show about death. Although the subject matter is literally morbid and Rothschild’s description of washing the body of her dead mother moved me to tears, it’s hard not to smile while watching someone weave their own wicker coffin to the strains of Monty Python’s Always Look on the Bright Side of Life – apparently the UK’s top choice of funeral song.
 
Rothschild is a funeral celebrant who runs a ‘green’ burial ground and is full of lively passion about death. Through personal stories she exposes the taboos in our society, explaining how death has become disconnected from family, community and wider society in our modern age.  She points out that every town will have NCT childbirth groups, but where are the death groups? After all, we’re all born, but we all die too. Most of the audience had heard of Braxton Hicks – the ‘practice’ contractions that start towards the end of pregnancy – yet only two people were familiar with Cheyne-Stokes, the changed pattern of breathing that can signify the end is near.
 
She also highlights the shocking fact that around 70 per cent of us will die without leaving a will or a less formal letter of wishes. This can mean that people end up without the burial they would have wanted, and even leave funeral costs unplanned for and unpaid. At the same time, we’re warned about the ‘death industry’, with some unscrupulous souls willing to exploit a lucrative and reliable customer base plagued with grief and guilt. The show certainly prompted me to think about the plans for my own demise (or rather, the current total lack of them) and realise that it’s a subject I’ve never broached with any of my family.
 
Medical science still cannot heal those who are finally dying, and at some point it will be our time to go. Although funerals are for the living rather than the dead, out of respect for human dignity and agency, we should be starting conversations about death right now. (KA)
 
Outside The Box - A Live Show About Death is on at 11.50 at Summerhall until August 21st. Relaxed Performances - https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/outside-the-box-a-live-show-about-death

More on the Death on the Fringe series: https://deathonthefringe.wordpress.com/

Compassion in Dying: http://compassionindying.org.uk/

The DeathCafe movement, running events aiming to encourage public conversations about death: http://deathcafe.com/

The Good Funeral Guide: http://www.goodfuneralguide.co.uk/

Final Fling – advice on life and death decisions as well as planning tools: https://www.finalfling.com/

Hospice UK, for information about hospice care at the end of life: https://www.hospiceuk.org/

Living Well Dying Well train doulas (companions) for the dying and run public and professional courses http://www.lwdwtraining.uk/

Natural Death Centre, providing free advice about death and burial: http://naturaldeath.org.uk/

Research paper on public attitudes to death, dying and bereavement from Nottingham University: https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/research/groups/srcc/documents/projects/srcc-project-summary-public-attitudes.pdf

Cheyne-Stokes breathing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheyne%E2%80%93Stokes_respiration

DELAY DETACH // Sonder Theatre

“Delay, distract, depersonalise, detach” is advice on how to communicate during an intense and escalating conversation with someone who has borderline personality disorder. It is an effective tool that Sophie has found online in this two-hander about a pair of friends from aged 5 to aged 70. At least, it is effective until the point at which Caitlin discovers what Sophie has been doing and resents the way she has been ‘handled’.

The discovery is yet another bump in the course of their relationship. Most of the bumps they encounter are ostensibly consequences of Caitlin’s mood disorder - and yet both of them have issues, which are not too well defined and so save the play from being about specific psychological conditions. For most of the narrative, Caitlin is in need of attention and support, so when an ageing Sophie starts to show symptoms of dementia, their roles get reversed. There aren’t many firm conclusions to be drawn from this story, except that friendships have serendipitous origins and unexpected turns, and that most of us depend on our friends to get by.

- MR

Delay Detach is on at 19.40 at Greenside @ Infirmary Street until August 20th (not 14th) - https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/delay-detach

Mind on Borderline Personality Disorder: http://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/types-of-mental-health-problems/borderline-personality-disorder-bpd/#.V63ygtArKUs

Advice for friends and family of people with BPD: http://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/types-of-mental-health-problems/borderline-personality-disorder-bpd/for-friends-and-family/

Friendship and mental health: https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/a-to-z/f/friendship-and-mental-health

 An example of delay, distract, depersonalize, detach: http://www.bpdcentral.com/blog/?Tips-for-Communicating-with-Someone-With-Borderline-Disorder-8

The Alzheimer’s Society on dementia: https://www.alzheimers.org.uk/site/scripts/documents.php?categoryID=200360

EAT. SLEEP. BATHE. REPEAT. // Act One

The title of Eat. Sleep. Bathe. Repeat refers directly to the routines that are as vital to the residents in a home for men with “low-functioning” autism as they are to the staff. The drama begins when these routines are interrupted by the arrival of James, a young man who needs holiday work but has no experience of caring for people with disabilities.

The narrative follows James as he gets to know everyone (including himself), and as such it adopts his naive neurotypical perspective. This, coupled with the fact that much of the dialogue is comedic, makes for discomforting watching at times. While non-autistic characters - particularly James - develop during the show, autistic characters are much less dynamic in the narrative. Their actions and changes in mood are often presented as random, inexplicable and dangerous. The play is based on true events but while it may be drawing on real people and experiences (albeit seen through a neurotypical lens), it risks falling back to one-dimensional portrayals of autism.

However, by presenting five characters with a variety of traits and needs, Eat. Sleep. Bathe. Repeat shows some of the diversity of autism even within the low-functioning end of the spectrum. And while most of the residents seen on stage are non-verbal, the play does succeed in giving each of them a distinct character, perhaps again reflecting the people who inspired it.

- MR

Eat. Sleep. Bathe. Repeat. is on at 20.25 at theSpace on the Mile until August 13th. Wheelchair Access, Level Access - https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/eat-sleep-bathe-repeat

Cian Binchy, an autistic performer, brought The Misfit Analysis to the Fringe last year: http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre-dance/news/we-need-autistic-actors-playing-autistic-roles-on-stage-says-curious-incident-adviser-10454728.html

Sara Barrett calls for authentic autistic voices in popular culture: https://www.theguardian.com/childrens-books-site/2016/apr/03/autism-voices-books-awareness-week

An interview with Steve Silberman, author of Neurotribes, including his dislike of the term “low-functioning”: http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/09/02/436742377/neurotribes-examines-the-history-and-myths-of-the-autism-spectrum

Information about autism from the National Autistic Society: http://www.autism.org.uk/