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!
As part of our Edinburgh Fringe coverage, Playbill is seeing a whole lotta shows—and we're sharing which ones you absolutely must see if you're only at the Fringe for a short amount of time. Consider these Playbill Picks a friendly, opinionated guide as you try to choose a show at the festival.
Funerals are funny things. They're meant to commemorate people who have already passed. But during a funeral, people say things about the deceased that they (usually) didn't say to that person when they were still alive. There's something about loss that makes one introspective and more honest. That is the conceit for a one-woman show from Hong Kong called A Funeral For My Friend Who is Still Alive.
The show was co-written by Kasen Tsui (a former journalist and the performer of the piece) and Cathy Lam (the show's director). In it, the central character has a funeral for a friend of hers she hasn't seen in three years. Because of the growing restrictions on individual freedoms and freedoms of the press in Hong Kong under the Chinese regime, her friend left the city and went silent. Usually, when we tell tales of immigration, it's from the point of view of those who left and the discoveries they made on the outside. It's rare to see the story of those who stay behind, who have to process that loss while surrounded by the ghosts of their memories.
A Funeral For My Friend Who is Still Alive is a memory play, like most eulogies are, as the central character recalls meeting her friend when they were both journalists. How participating in the recurring protests in Hong Kong had left both of them deeply traumatized—her friend always wears flip flops for that reason because those shoes are easy to slip on when you're blinded by tear gas and need to find some shoes. And the brief words they exchanged when he abruptly left one day.
But as written by Tsui and Lam, based on Tsui's own experience, all of these deeply painful memories are expressed to the audience with a light and deft touch. True to life, Tsui's character in the play uses humor as a coping mechanism. Recalling a protest where they were running from police spraying tear gas, Tsui rolls on the ground, giving the scene an absurdist edge. Or when she notes that despite its human rights violations, the Chinese government also built a state-of-the-art university but there were no students in it: "We would debate over which would come first, my city's democracy or students to the campus."
Because sometimes, when life is bleak, you have no choice but to laugh. Tsui is a winning performer—this is her first time performing in English and at the Fringe. Her ability to embody the story's humor and pathos, while interacting with the audience, instantly pulls you in.
What this play isn't is a documentary about the political situation in Hong Kong, or how ever since the British gave the city they colonized to China, there's been recurring protests for democracy every couple years—which are always violently squashed. But A Funeral For My Friend Who is Still Alive is smart enough to give audiences just enough context to make them understand, while encouraging viewers to research on their own afterwards. After all, eulogies are never comprehensive—they're just an evocative snapshot. And A Funeral for My Friend Who is Still Alive is a particularly beautiful portrait.
A Funeral for My Friend Who is Still Alive has been extended at theSpace at Niddry Street until August 19. Read more about Playbill-recommended shows at this space here.
