I didn’t catch Ingrid Garner’s solo storytelling show last year, Eleanor’s Story: An American Girl in Hitler’s Germany. But I heard such good things about it from people whose opinions I value that I was sorry to miss it.
This year, her sequel, Eleanor’s Story: Life After War, is on stage at one of the Holy Trinity Anglican Church venues. (This Fringe-grounds-adjacent church community embraces arts outreach year-round, and they have hosted Fringe venues for long enough to be very good at it. There’s a tea-room, a “cheer-garden” with liquor rules allowing you to finish your drinks while in line for a show, and always cheerful patient knowledgeable FOH volunteers.) This year’s show is also a solo storytelling performance by writer/performer Ingrid Garner (and, it turns out, the granddaughter of the real-life narrator). It was very well done. The 17-year-old, who had been stuck in Berlin with her family throughout World War Two, gets a visa to return to the USA in 1946 and describes the next year as the “blackest year of my life”. If you ever read Anne Frank’s diary, you may have been startled to read about her ordinary growing-up concerns being as significant to her as the mortal danger and deprivation she was suffering with her family. In this story, some of those horrors of living not just in wartime Germany but then in Russian-occupied Berlin were a bit easier to listen to because they were recounted by someone who survived. But the confusions and humiliations of a teenager landing in an American high school while experiencing culture shock and post-trauma reactions were so easy to empathize with. The solo performer easily conveys the 17yo’s attitudes and feelings, but also re-creates various family members, the best friend she leaves in Germany, teachers and classmates, as well as less benign encounters.
Late last night, while Late Night Cabaret had the night off, I attended Vavianna Vardot’s Famous Sex Party at the beautiful Rapid Fire Exchange venue, Rapid Fire Theatre’s year-round home. It is hosted by Amber Nash of Atlanta in the statuesque stage persona of Vavianna Vardot. Other parts of last night’s entertainment included a band, burlesque performers Sharpay Diem and Violette Coquette, Zackary Parsons-Lozinski singing crude lyrics to a familiar song, various audience participation bits including inviting a visual artist to do a painting of Vavianna during the show (the outdoor performer Fairy Cowboy/Keltie Kip Monaghan, who was great), and I don’t remember what all else.
Tonight I’ll be back at Late Night Cabaret, selling drinks rather than drinking them, but still watching the show. And before that, I’ll get to watch Keith Brown’s 100% Wizard! Maybe I’ll see you there!
Ephemeral Pleasures 