The Edinburgh Festival Fringe is the biggest arts festival in the world, with over 3,700 shows. This year, Playbill is in town for the festival and we’re taking you with us. Follow along as we cover every single aspect of the Fringe, aka our real-life Brigadoon!
As part of our Edinburgh Fringe coverage, Playbill is seeing a whole lotta shows—and we're letting you know what we think of them. Consider these reviews a friendly, opinionated guide as you try to choose a show at the festival.
It wouldn't be an Edinburgh Fringe without a new offering from Australian supernova Reuben Kaye.
The cabaret star, whose velvet vocals cloak razor sharp comedic timing, has developed a new boundary-pushing show, set to play London's Soho Theatre following its Edinburgh run. Called Live and Intimidating, Kaye has stripped himself of his opera gloves to truly get into the muck of modern life with his audience; don't bother trying to escape back into ignorance, he's already locked the doors.
"We live our lives scurrying about on nothing more than stolen land and borrowed time," Kaye intones at the top of the show, performing one of several original songs he has written with longtime music director Shannon D Whitelock. "And so we gather, for what? To bear witness, to celebrate, or perchance, to mourn...Perhaps, when we are at our most divided, it is our grief that can unite us."
And thus begins what can only be described as a tour-de-force wake for humanity, both as a species and as a concept.
Full disclosure: Kaye has become synonymous with the Fringe across my years of coverage, inspiring a fierce devotion through his previous solo offerings (The Butch is Back) and variety show hosting (The Kaye Hole). Since first witnessing his work, I have endeavored to never go more than six months without experiencing him, crossing the pond countless times to check in on an artist that I wholly believe has tapped into a desperately necessary humanist truth. Naturally, I was overjoyed when Kaye announced this new offering.
In Live and Intimidating, it would've been easy for Kaye to rest on his well-established laurels, tossing out well-timed zingers with a wink in between his favorite set of cabaret standards. After the last two years, I certainly wouldn't have blamed him. The target of a far-right hate campaign that would have pushed many artists into an early retirement for the sake of self preservation, Kaye is a warrior biting back—with a show that pushes even further past the boundaries espoused by social conservatives.
READ: Drag Performer Reuben Kaye Is Combating Death Threats with Comedy
Of particular interest is Kaye's venture into songwriting; alongside Whitelock and his regular band, Kaye performs a small handful of original songs within the show, a first in his career. Answering the question, "What would it look like if Lotte Lenya had lived long enough to star in a Bruce Sussman-penned Inferno descent into Thatcherism?", Kaye's gin-laced lyrics and benzedrine-steeped melodies form something of a queer cabaret highball.
Songwriting for a cabaret context can be a brutal exercise; there's a reason almost all modern cabaret artists continue to return to the same standards that have populated songbooks since the 1920s. As Kaye finds his footing within the vulnerability such new work requires, a new self-soothing tick has kicked in, with Kaye biting down upon the tip of his thumb unconsciously while gauging the reaction of his audience. It is a rare experience to witness a true professional on the edge of discovery, and the small glimpses of Kaye's refinement process are illuminating.
Kaye's comedy has always been bracing. And with a few more rounds of distillation, I have faith that his lyrics will develop the same sting. As it stands, Kaye's decision to render Live and Intimidating a wholly original show means that there just isn't quite enough music to tip the scale from buzzed to punch-drunk; a well-placed cover or two would not be amiss.
Unlike Kaye's previous offerings, which have centered on specific themes (such as his wildly successful The Butch Is Back, which explored his complicated relationship with his late father), Live and Intimidating is much more of a check-in between Kaye's audience and himself. We're all alive, but is anyone actually living? Or are we all merely surviving until the end of days? In the face of rebuilding a less restrictive society with what little time the planet has left, Kaye is both Eve and Adam, feasting upon knowledge while shouldering the spectral burden of unthinkable consequences.
"We've all been sold a lie, my babies," Kaye states during the shows high-octane closing number. "That life is only an agonizing choice between two options and two options only. Yes, no. Black, white. Able, disabled. Male, female. Rich, poor. But don't you see, life has never been binary. Like a stripper with a detached retina, life dances between the poles."
Kaye has lived, and continues to live, with consequences of living outside the dichotomy. He also knows that the suffering it can incur pales in comparison to the internal strife that comes with adhering to a social order that serves no one but the most noxious of our species.
"We're in a crucial time now, society. What have I learned through all that I've been through?" Kaye remarks rhetorically to the rapt audience. "Is it to carry myself with more maturity? Is it to modify my personality so I am more tasteful to those who don't know me? Fuck that. Every time someone is authentically themselves, the world is a more fascinating place. So let me tell you this, every time they try and push us down (and they will), be like me at every prostate exam: push back."
Reuben Kaye: Live and Intimidating runs at Assembly George Square Gardens' Palais du Variété through August 25. His run at London's Soho Theatre begins September 10.
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