The Edinburgh Festival Fringe is the biggest arts festival in the world, with nearly 3,500 shows. This year, Playbill is in Edinburgh for the entire month in August 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!

In 2022, Chelsea Hart tried to take their life. The reason for the attempt was complex—they had had an abortion, and in the aftermath, their pain was used as comic fodder on TikTok. An audio clip of Hart crying went viral on the platform, with people creating dances to it. It was vile. Hart talks about this in their stirring hour-long stand-up show Damet Garm: How I Joined a Revolution. 

Surprisingly, Hart is still active on social media. When asked how they are still able to tolerate those platforms, they chuckle wryly, saying, "I'm beautifully medicated, me and my medication are besties." All joking aside, they say that breaks from social media are important, and so is being "out in the real world." Specifically, out in the real world doing a show at the Edinburgh Fringe. 

Damet Garm: How I Joined a Revolution takes its title from a Farsi phrase. "Damet garm" means "may your breath be warm." It's a common wish for health and well-being within the Iranian community, of which Hart has become intimately familiar. They aren't Iranian, Hart is from Alaska, but they've become something of a celebrity in Iranian circles—they started making satirical videos last year critiquing the repressive Iranian government and supporting the human rights protests in Iran. They went viral in the Iranian parts of social media.

And in the smartly constructed and highly relevant Damet Garm, Hart is making an important point by contrasting the protests happening in Iran with the online pile-ons that are so common today. They are showing what actual movement for change looks like versus performative outrage. "Nobody wants to build community anywhere, they just want to be right," Hart says during their show. "It's so much easier to be right than it is to be useful."

In the show, Hart is making impassioned plea for community, for all of us who want to do good to come together and actually do it—not just talk about it online. It's an emotionally impactful show, made all the better by how well Hart interacts with the audience during—if anyone had any doubts about their activist bonafides, at the show I attended, there were two Iranian gentlemen sitting in the audience, and Hart spoke to both of them in Farsi. 

Below, Hart (who lives in New York City) talks to Playbill about combining art with advocacy, and how they began their Fringe journey nine years ago by singing opera in the street.

Can you tell me about your history with the Fringe?
Chelsea Hart: Yeah, I started comedy here. Nine years ago, in 2014, I came to the Fringe with about $5, and started street performing. And I never really looked back. I financed my life that way, and then came back the next year, dabbled in comedy. It's been eight years now.

Why did you decide to bring this show here?
It's the biggest art festival in the world. So it kind of makes sense to bring it here. I've dedicated a year of my life now to Iran. I don't see that stopping. I am passionate about these people, 'cause I really believe in them. I know they're gonna succeed. And they just need support. They need eyes. They need Westerners to ask questions of the [Biden] government. Why are you capitulating? Why are you pacifying this regime? Why are you playing kid with a Fascist state? It's really a show for young, tired Leftists—people who are progressive, but are a little disillusioned with this era of no nuance and how absurdity gets views. It's just a show for people who are looking for more out of their progressive values.

I was really struck by what you said in the show, about when it comes to Western discourse about the Middle East, that we dismiss human rights violations through the lens of, "Well, that's just their culture."
It's such an imperialist view. It's such an infantilizing view that you, this Western European person, just magically have this nice, safe place. And then everybody else is just different from you. That's so imperialist. It's so dehumanizing. And they don't even realize it. It's cultural relativism. For me, it's the new woke Western imperialism, that just imposes the view that the West just has this different way of life and everybody else is just different and we just need to accept it. Iranian culture, and so many cultures in the Middle East, are based around the things that we all love: joy, friends, birthdays, gifts, we all drink water, we all see the same sun.

This current regime in Iran is not a government. This regime is a cancer. Iranians have a beautiful, complex and rich culture. The regime has had 44 years to bastardize the worldview of Iranian culture, whereas Iranian culture just could not be more different. 

In your show, you start off by telling the audience about your background. And the Iranian portion doesn't come until later. How did you settle on the structure of it?
I'm not Iranian. I'm, like, genetically European. So, I wanted to talk about my upbringing and how I kind of wound up even just making TikToks and then gradually learning about Iranians. In my head, I had this very philosophical, romantic view of Persian or Iranian culture—like Rumi, Hafez. All of these thinkers are responsible for this cultural Renaissance in the Middle East, and they're all Iranian. So I had a very good idea in my head before. 

And then I really saw what the modern Iranians are going through—I really had to reckon with myself because I'm not a special species, either. I'm one of those same Westerners, who was kind of, "Ho hum. It's complicated." But it's just not. These are the same people, the same culture, the same lovers and thinkers and philosophers, they've always been locked in this terrible dungeon called the IRGC [the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps].

What are you hoping for this show to do?
I'm just hoping to spread the word about Iran. I'm hoping to push people towards resources to get more involved with the actual Iranian community. I really just want more Leftists to get outraged, to get angry, to start talking about this more, to start pushing back on some of the dogma and really getting their friends talking about this. This is a feminist movement. This is a queer movement. This is an everything movement. I'm in contact with queer people in Iran. It is a living hell in Iran for women and for queer people. This is a progressive movement, this is an anti-establishment, anti-Fascist movement. And we, in the Western left, the fact that so few people are still really grasping on to that is just outrageous. 

That's what I really want. This is a show for tired young Leftists who are still progressive, who are kind of disillusioned with some of just the talking points, the endless, just mindless buzzwords. This show is for people who really want to dig deep and grow and understand the word even just beyond what they've been told.

What are your plans for the show after this?
Touring. I'd like to get a charity attached to it like, pointing people towards a fund for protesters, towards pages to follow, petitions follow—just getting people talking about this, having it on their feed. This show is, like, a vessel of pointing them towards Iranian sources. You like this comedy show? Imagine how much more you'll love these Iranian pages?

Damet Garm: How I Joined a Revolution runs at Gilded Balloon Treviot until August 27. Damet Garm is one of two shows Playbill attended at the Fringe about Iran, the other was Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World.