Fringe Reviews: The Aquatic Melody, The Fahrenheit Alliance V, Hey Stop!!!, Saloon Girls & Hibiscus Thistle: A Panorama of Hunan

The Aquatic Melody

★★★★

In the corner of a small but sold-out venue, a stage with a single table and chair draws our attention. A softly strummed stringed instrument signals the beginning of the show and our male protagonist Lin Jiaxing makes an entrance with his low timbred voice. Our female protagonist, dressed in a white pearl embellished gown, answers with her bold and bright vocals from the audience as she walks to the stage.

This 40-minute performance tells a classic tale of forbidden romance, of ‘predator and prey’ as the producer explained with a mermaid and a man who hunts them. Told through Celtic Cross tarot formation, we are taken on a journey of love, betrayal, sacrifice, hope and fate.

This production is sung entirely in Mandarin but a little blue and pink popsicle-shaped programme hosting the song list was handed out as we entered the theatre. Producer Betty Bong dressed as the tarot fool or empress also intermittently stepped on stage to dramatically link each song with the Celtic Cross tarot formation theme.

This theme may have been clearer for Mandarin speakers, but the programme did help illuminate the connection between each song and its tarot card. As I read the programme, I was impressed with how thought out the character and story arc were, and how the tarot theme added complexity to the story rather than feeling superfluous. However, even without understanding the language or having the booklet, it would be easy to follow the plot progression through the musical actors’ voices, body language and tone on stage.

Yiyi Kong as Xu Zidong is exquisite. Her vocal range and control had me holding my breath so that the sound of my own breathing didn’t distract me from the clarity of her voice. Her highs were powerful, bold and skilful, but her soft lows in tender moments were just as dazzling. I wouldn’t be surprised to see her on bigger stages and even screens in the future.

The Aquatic Melody was Calvin Huang’s first vocal performance as he usually plays a different instrument: the violin. It’s hard to match Yiyi Kong’s practiced and confident vocals but he does well in balancing and complementing her with his soft melodic tone. He has a very pleasing baritone that works well both with big story-driven tunes and pop songs and will only get better and more confident as his career grows.

An immersive performance oozing with chemistry and stunning harmonization from a talented cast and production team. Keep your eye out for each of them in future – I know I will.

Performed by Gold and Jade Stages

The Fahrenheit Alliance V

★★★★

Trying to feel connection in this increasingly digitally connected world is a paradox. But in a small room tucked away in Edinburgh’s Quaker’s Meeting House, a performer walks me through a project created during the COVID pandemic that seeks to connect people from all over the world – digitally.

While we no longer have to social distance ourselves, this one-on-one performance constructs a familiarity between strangers and disconnected people. Inspired by Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, this performance tackles technology’s ability to isolate us, but instead of rejecting it altogether, it embraces and encompasses it in a different light that aims to tether us to each other.

The premise is simple: the artist Mitsuko Hirai and audience member (me) lie under the covers in separate cots, divided only by a white curtain. During the first half of the performance, Mitsuko is projected live around the room as she listens to a recording in English and Japanese. In the second half, it is my turn to listen and see myself projected as I connect with the content in whatever way inspires me. In those 20 minutes, an intimacy is created, and a story is written between the two of us.

Innovative and unlike anything I have experienced, this little interlude felt especially meaningful during the Edinburgh Fringe where there are thousands of people within shoulder-touching distance of each other, yet they may never know of each other’s existence.

Written by Kyle Yamada, Performed by Mitsuko Hirai, Hirai-Kikaku

Hey Stop!!!

★★★★

Recorded voices fill the stage, talking over each other as five dancers react to them with different frequencies.

Throughout the performance and each montage, the dancers took turns interacting with each other in fraught and frenetic movements while another dancer responded, grappling on their own in the shadows. You begin to feel and see your own anxieties echoed in different traits from claustrophobia of being trapped in obligatory social situations to the hair rising fear of being watched and judged to the trembling pressure to join in the conversation.

Unsettling imagery is often devised to conceptualise anxiety, from moments where the dancer feels out of control in insecure environments to reimagining the human centipede in cool lighting while a lone person moves off-centre almost as if they are possessed.

Spring Dance Collective have drawn inspiration from Pina Bausch and you can see that influence in the near-frantic movements that heighten our senses combined with the experimental multimedia approach that visualise personal experiences, reminiscent of Bausch’s signature style.

Despite the intensity in the distraught atmosphere, the hopefulness in the last few minutes where the dancers’ movements felt freer and looser, leaving me with a lightness that I hadn’t expected to feel.

An evocative performance that felt as if someone had rooted through my brain to recreate and personify while demonstrating how different social anxiety can feel for everyone.

Performed by Spring Dance Collective. 

Saloon Girls

★★★★

Unlike many stories written and told in the Wild West where the saloon girls are afterthoughts, props to testosterone-filled cowboys or perhaps inspiration for a romance with a heavy dose of power imbalance, Saloon Girls shines several stage lights on the hardworking and long-suffering ‘soiled doves’, their relationships with each other and the complicated relationship with their Madam.

Complex and fleshed out characters stand out from a talented cast who do a phenomenal job of creating empathy. Not a single actor lagged behind in their delivery of believable characters with distinct motivations and personalities.

Marvel is the best dove at the saloon, keeping everyone in line for the madam while harbouring dreams of leaving. Her lover Estelle is a French femme fatale with a devil-may-care attitude but her soft heart often sees through to the truth of others. Bim is young and has kept her naivety and unwavering trust in her saloon sisters to see her right despite her experiences. Pregnant Lucky was born into the saloon life and covers her insecurities about impending motherhood with a sharp tongue.

Under the hawk-like watch of Madam Pearl, these four girls laugh and squabble, but ultimately work together to keep each other safe. This is the status quo until Marvel’s formally upright sister Stevie shows up unannounced and is pulled into the seedy world of Saloon Girls one debt at a time.

Saloon Girls didn’t seek to romanticize their experiences or shy away from the unseemly realities like sexual transmitted diseases, abuse at the hands of their patrons and the debtor-like relationship they had with the Madam. What it does do is humanise these women and their experiences, and highlights the realities of women in the frontier.

Equal parts bawdy and tender, Saloon Girls submerges its audience in the raunchy wild west in a calamitous tale of sisterhood – both born and found.

Performed by August Kiss Fegley, Alison Newton, Zoya Ansari, Chloe Mutebi, Alison Newton, Aubree Ann Williams  & Olivia Terrell

Hibiscus Thistle: A Panorama of Hunan

★★★★★

The Signet Library is one of the most magical settings in Edinburgh, filled with old books, grand ceilings and white columns, perfect to host a musical celebration of Hunan culture and heritage.

Thirteen musicians took to the stage during the evening, included Turkish-Glaswegian cellist Erdem Akca and Aberdonian fiddler Paul Anderson, to weave a story about the diverse mountainous Chinese province from past to present.

They began with a song titled “Spring on the Xiang River”, composed in 1976 by Ning Baosheng on the di zi (bamboo flute). All of the musicians were enthralling on their instruments, but Du Wei on the bright-sounding di truly stood out, evoking the joyous beginning of Spring that this piece was meant to be.

In between each song, our English-speaking host Everett walked us through the history of each instrument and Hunan’s living culture of music. Lisi presented the same information in Mandarin before taking the stage as an opera singer. Trained in various styles of opera, his first performance “The Bounty of Dongting Lake” composed by Bai Chengren showcased a distinct style I haven’t heard before as Lisi used different inflections to storytell with this voice.

Another opera singer Chen Qian followed two songs later with a crystal-clear voice that carried through the old library building as she sang “Fragrant Symbols of Virtue” with the guzheng, sheng and piano as support.

Chen Hui on guzheng was ethereal as she interwove the melodious timbre of her instrument and created tension within each piece. But she was just as skilled on the tranquil and more intimate quqin with one my favourite pieces of the night, “The Drunken State of Ecstasy”.

The sheng was an instrument I hadn’t seen or knowingly heard before (I emphasise knowingly because I have seen Kunqu opera which sheng music is a feature), and I was mesmerised by Peng Jie’s rendition of “Midstream” on the free reed bamboo instrument with its bright and upbeat sound. It’s impressive looking on its own – like a cathedral or skyscraper – but when played with the skill of a musician who understands and appreciates her instrument, it has its own poignant magic.

Perhaps one of the most iconic and versatile Chinese instruments, I will never tire of hearing the pipa. Lu Yuwei felt almost cinematic playing the iconic “The Nanniwan Valley” in a sweeping and adept performance that had me sitting taller on my chair.

The ruan may look familiar to those who’ve heard banjo music before, but it has its own distinct history and musical style. Dai Yiqi played “A Song from Afar” with grace and fervour, using her instrument to invite us to listen to its tale.

The Erhu is one of my favourite instruments and Zhang Yinyue’s beautifully rendition of “The One I Long For” felt like an aching lament that reached by heart and soul. Exquisitely played, it felt like poetry.

Entwined between many performances were Lingling Ng on Piano, Wang Ziyu on various forms of percussion, He Simin on Erhu and Erdem Akca on cello whose support made each song seamless and harmonious.

Near the end of the performance, we move into the future and the connection of music between China and Scotland with Aberdonian fiddler Paul Anderson playing his original song “The Beauty of Cromar Before Me”. Despite the change in style, his song rejoicing the splendour of a distinct part of Scotland married well with the theme of the evening. He also joined the musicians to perform one of China’s most famous folk songs “The Liuyang River” before almost seamlessly transitioning in Scotland’s most famous folk song “Auld Lang Syne”.

A phenomenal and transportive performance from an incredibly talented group of musicians.

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