The perils of going it alone

THE ONE-MAN show is the new black. At least to theatre folk who have embraced the style as this season’s must-try format. There are 19 such productions in the Absolut Fringe where the next generation of theatre- makers sink their fangs into a vein more used to nourishing artists in the later stages of their career.

"Nobody wants bullshit any more," says Amy Conroy, the writer/star of Eternal Rising of the Sun. "There is a desire for honest, driven theatre where we expose part of ourselves to the audience and cut out all the crap and pretension." Eternal Rising of the Suncontinues her desire to make theatre about invisible people. "The people you don't see in society. And if you do, you make a snap decision about them and move on."

Just as the elderly lesbians she wrote of in I Alice Iwere dismissed by some as "cute" or "sexless", Gina, who uses dance classes as a catalyst to seeing a world of possibility, could be dismissed as a tracksuit-wearing buggy-pusher. "So it had to be Gina's voice centre stage," says Conroy, "because she's never had a voice before."

It’s directed by Veronica Cobourn, a long-time friend and collaborator, a relationship Conroy says is integral to her undertaking the project. “It would be really hard to go into a room with a stranger,” she says.

"You don't want it to be just another job for them. A one-person show is all-consuming and incredibly intense. You're vulnerable and you need to know that you are in safe hands." So why put yourself in the the firing line? Is there a certain amount of ego involved? "I think it is the exact opposite of ego," says Maeve Fitzgerald. "It's a terrible mistake to do a show just because you think it will do something for you. It should be because you believe that you can add something to it." She undertook The Yellow Wallpaper, her staging of a groundbreaking short story about a woman with post-partum psychosis, so she could put her voice on it. "I wanted to put my own experiences in life to work to make it something real," she says.

Aoife Spillane-Hinks directs, tailoring the rehearsal process to Fitzgerald in a way that isn’t possible with an ensemble. “We have spent a lot of time working through this extraordinary script, working out what this and that is. And if Maeve said, ‘this moment I don’t get, let’s go back to the table and figure it out’, we can do that. With a larger cast one person might get it, another person might want to go back to the table and another might want to walk it through.”

On a practical level the rehearsal hours are shorter. “I’m finding that I can only do 40 minutes at a time,” says Fitzgerald, “and then I need a break. It’s like training for a marathon. You start off doing short spurts in order to get ready for the longer one to ensure you don’t burn out.”

For Corn Exchange the decision to do a one-man show ( Man of Valour) was largely motivated by a cut in funding. "We can't ask people to come and explore with us without paying them," says director Annie Ryan. "Our work is relatively expensive. So we had to ask, how many people can we afford to have in the room and for how long?" The solution presented itself in the shape of Paul Reid, an actor with a gift for telling stories through his body. "We do workshops with members of our company and invited players. Most people, when they are improvising, just get up and talk. But Paul would sprout wings, fly over the city, catch bullets in his teeth, come back to life in slow motion. It dawned on me that there was a one-man show in him." While some actors thrive on flying solo, Reid felt lonely.

“If something goes well you have no one to bounce off and no one to have a good old little bitch with when things go wrong. Which is important to an actor. It’s the loneliest moment in the world before I go on.”

With no co-stars to bounce off, how do they keep the text from sliding into dull recitation? Or keep their energy up to an accepted level? “I have to sketch a character beside me in my own head and let the audience paint it in,” says Reid.

Fitzgerald tries a similar tact. “The characters in the play, even though she only speaks of them, when they are in my head, I know what they look like, and I know whom they are. We’ve cast them, really carefully, so I feel comfortable that that person is real.” Actors pay an incredible mental tax when they undertake a one-man show and the right kind of preparation is crucial. Conroy and Reid both mention the difficulty they face when warming up prior to the Fringe, thanks to the cattle market that each venue becomes around that time.

Fitzgerald picked up hot yoga, part of a plan of living well, which also includes a healthy diet, abstention from alcohol and generally trying to eliminate any stress.

“I did a show before where I had to go to a really bad place,” says Fitzgerald “and I got into a really bad place, myself, after it. Somebody pointed out to me that if you really go for it each night on stage your body doesn’t know you’re acting and it will get sick. So you learn from those experiences to be a little bit more careful with yourself.”

These shows reflect a growing sense of confidence among younger performers in their right to have a voice. “It’s less of ‘an old person looking back on their lives’ kind of vibe,” says Fitzgerald. “It’s more present.” And it’s a challenge.

Conroy adds: “If you love what you do, you want to push yourself as far as you can within your chosen field. It’s terrifying and thrilling at the same time but if it works out I will feel triumphant. I’ll feel like I really achieved something. As an actor this will be my Everest.”