It ain't what on doug ...
DEB FILLER does on-stage baking while PATRICK WILDE campaigns against TV dictating real life.
Words: John Binnie
wo gay-related shows which you might have missed when confronted with the enormity of this year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe are Deb Filler‘s solo Filler Up and Patrick Wilde’s comedy fantasy You Caulrln 'I Make it Up. New Zealander Filler does a ‘live and in person bake on stage’ in the oven of Naked Chef Jamie Oliver no less. ‘I come from a long line of bakers.‘ she says. ‘My father baked. so too did his father in Poland. My mother is one of the great unheralded bakers in New Zealand.‘ Filler has already known great success with her I992 solo Punch Me in the Stomach detailing a trip she took with her father. ‘lt was a whirlwind tour of Eastern European death camps.‘ she says. ‘My father weighed 70 pounds at the end of the war. He survived Auschwitz. Tantamount to his survival was his sense of humour.‘
I ‘The gay scene has changed a lot over the last nine years but we’re still here.’
Celebrate the Joy birthday party in the Festival Clubs section. page 74.
‘I disagree with the lie that it’s easier to be gay now than it was before’
Just what Dob Filler kneads after a day on the Fringe
Filler Up is less autobiographical. dealing with the mother/daughter experience. especially in relationship to food. ‘How do you survive a family that loves food?’ she says. “Especially as a woman. where you are defined depending on your weight? Being lesbian is only one of the strands of the play. The character is also a performer. Jewish. a great cook. a loyal daughter. an independent woman. a sister. there are many elements to her.‘
Portraying 27 characters in the course of the play. Filler believes a playwright ‘scrves the time. serves the audience and serves the community‘. Filler Up has already been workshopped in Toronto. New York and New ZCaIand. and is ready for its Fringe debut.’
Patrick Wilde’s first Fringe experience in 1993 didn‘t start off well. ‘My first play What’s Wmng with Angry? performed initially to audiences of live.’ he says. But it became a West End hit. and then was transformed into a touching movie Get Real. Since then he has written for TV hits This Life and Casualty and is adapting Paul Monette’s AIDS memoir Becoming a Man for screen.
Wilde's new comedy You Couldn't Make it Up is about a film about a play about lies. ‘lt explores how TV dictates how we see the world. while really it should be the other way about.‘ he says. ‘It was inspired by a group of my straight friends who said: “Oh. Patrick. you’re not still writing gay issue plays? Not now that we have gay characters in soap operas. cartoons. even adverts?" I still defy any parent who. if given the choice. that their child would be gay or straight. would choose a gay child. I disagree with the lie that it’s easier to be gay now than it was before.’
Then Patrick laughs. ‘Oh. I sound so angry and polemic. The play is not. lt‘s funny. even quite cartoon-like in places.‘
Anyone who was lucky to see Wilde‘s previous dramas. can expect passion. integrity and truth.
Filler Up, Assembly Rooms, 226 2428, 3-26 Aug, 1.45pm, 929—210 (28-29); You Couldn’t Make it Up, Gilded Balloon, 226 2151, 2-24 Aug, 2.45pm, £8-£9 (27-528).
1—8 Aug 2C02 THE LIST FESTIVAL GUIDE 33
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New American drama to naked aerialists
l Swimming In the Shallows The Scottish premiere of Adam Book's quirky surreal Rhode Island-set comedy charting the relationships between a quartet of lesbian and gay friends. alongside a man in love with a shark. Pleasance. 556 6550, until 26 Aug. 2pm. £8 (£5).
E The Laramie Project Sparked by the murder of gay student Mathew Shepherd in the Wyoming town of Laramie. Moises Kaufman's docudrama investigates the lives and attitudes of the town’s inhabitants. There were due to be two productions. one from Canada and the other from the States, but sadly the Canadians have pulled out. 0. 0870 701 5705, until 70 Aug. noon, £5.50 (£4.50).
Scott Capurro Expect wisecracks. witticisms and perceptive analysis from the San Franciscan comedian who knows no bounds. Assembly Rooms. 226 4284, 2—26 Aug 77.45pm, £70 (£39).
{it Desires of Frankenstein Modern homoerotic version of the monsters myth. where the monster is a gorgeous. soulless 17-year-old boy. This gothic drama stars Paul Danan oi Hol/yoaks. Pleasance. 556 6550. until 26 Aug, 6pm, £9.50 (£5).
a Throat Gay aerialist John- Paul Zaccarini (pictured below) explores masculinity in this remarkable nude solo rope show. Zaccarini won raves as Skyboy, the star of the Millennium Dome show. Pleasance. 556 6550, until 26 Aug, 7.30pm. £8.50 (£5.50).