Greenside on George Street
August 3-23 (17:25)
First show of the Fringe, brilliant! & I thought I’d catch the brand new effort of a performer I took a wee shine to last year – primarily because of her flawless ability to combine electric wordplay with hypersonic physicality. Olivia Raine Atwood, out of LA, & landing again in Edinburgh, splash-diving into our live 3D sets with a play call’d Oops.
Three dimensions, actually, doesn’t quite cut it; when you’re experiencing – watching is also too tame a word – Olivia at work, it definitely seems a more immersive experience than the plain, old boring ‘three’ of conventional reality.
So, what of this year’s show – Oops! Well, first thing’s first, after catching Olivia in the foyer of Greenside, & gushing my appreciation for her work, she explain’d to me there was a secret third show which she was now performing. ‘And what’s that?’ I ask’d, a little confus’d. The answer I obtain’d went something like as follows – she was certainly not ready to park, ‘Faking It’ yet, & had only just completed this year’s first performance of it in another room in Greenside, & was now heading to the the next theatre space to perform Oops, & whatever happens in between is the secret third show.
What the actual…!
Still, the rich tapestry of life contains difficult bits of artisan embroidery I would definitely not attempt – but they’re there, & so is Olivia Raine Atwood’s 2025 Fringe double-header.
So where was I? Oh yeah, the play, Oops. Dare I say Olivia is now classic, well I’m going to, because it was classic Olivia; more poetical sprinting, more stage-filling acrobatics, more thought-provoking vignettes – just more, more, more!
Play’d out on a minimal, but highly effective stage, the piece begins with a brilliant account of her pooping her pants on the Willy B Bridge on the way to her boyfriends. “This is a first store in a line of sight situation!” she tells us.
We’ve all had a turtlehead or two in her lives, but hers was a veritable Galapogasean Giant. Olivia then cleverly segways us into her role as a romantic matchmaker, via her highschool obsessions with boys, all play’d out in a series of pages from her teenage notebooks beam’d to us in an enlarg’d form above her. Stars for friendship, hearts for love, & an early analytical rendition of those confusions of an adolescent heart which, in Olivia’s case, has led to her online, matchmaking adulthood persona – Liv’s Love Pool.
There follows some hilarious renditions of several of her Zoom interactions with clients. Olivia has film’d herself, & beams herself into the room above the flesh & blood Olivia, who thro’ voice-alterations & rapid costume changes, & absolute impeccable timing, maintains natural & fluid conversations. A real theatrical treat & testament to Olivia’s all-round genius.
If with love thy heart has burned;
If thy love is unreturned;
Hide thy grief within thy breast,
Though it tear thee unexpressed
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The climax of the play comes thro’ Olivia’s one true love, Sam, being matchmak’d with one of her oldest female friends, & ends with some strange pathotic mix of sharing her personal jubilation of her making this happen, yet me really sensing sadness because it hasn’t quite happen’d to her yet. Perhaps Olivia wasn’t meaning to conjure that spirit, but I sens’d that was the subconscious takeaway from all of this – she’s bore her teenage soul to us, the one that dreamt of boys – but her greatest experience is matchmaking her true love with someone else – that’s got Restoration tragedy all over it!
Yeah, I love watching Liv, she’s well cool, & there is a solidly funny humour-streak to her performance rainbow. Her new play, Oops, was a fantastic, busy, bubblebounce of a show. It’s different from Faking It – think of Strange Doors following The Doors album, there’s some classic tunes on it, but perhaps not as perfect as the first. Yet, Olivia Raine Atwood is here to stay, for sure, & I can’t wait to buy her third album!
Damo
themumble.uk 