“Besides the quality of the shows and the opportunity to see so many emerging and established artists working together, what really makes a great festival is meeting new people and forging new relationships. And staying up too late in the pubs.”
WHO: John Clancy
WHAT: “JUST LIKE HOLLYWOOD (I SEE YOU WATCHING) continues the decades-long collaboration between Director Melanie Stewart and Obie award winner/Playwright John Clancy working at the crux of contemporary dance and theater practice in America. Joined by performer Kylie Westerbeck, this new work centers on, explores and explodes the entrapment, degradation, and exertion of control over a young woman’s body in post Roe vs Wade America.
On a bare stage, using only props supplied by a demanding and impatient master of ceremonies, Westerbeck must justify her continuing survival and prove her worth, and her right to choose her own destiny. Is she a beauty queen? A brood mare? A willing lover or a wanton whore? What is the combination, what is the key to unlock the cage she exists in, she has been legislated in, and she willdie in ifshe cannot escape? Maybe there’s another way out.”
WHERE: Quarry Theatre
WHEN: 24 & 26 July 2023 @ VARIES (60mins)
MORE: Click Here!
Is this your first time to Bedfringe?
Yes, first time and really looking forward to it. I rehearsed a show here in 2005 and put it up for a couple of nights before taking it up to Edinburgh. I love this town. One of the special things is the quality and intelligence of the audience and how much they embrace the festival. I’ve been lucky to be in many festivals around the world and was the founding Artistic Director of the New York International Fringe. Besides the quality of the shows and the opportunity to see so many emerging and established artists working together, what really makes a great festival is meeting new people and forging new relationships. And staying up too late in the pubs.
What are the big things you’ve learned since 2023 and have you absorbed any of the lessons yet?
I’ve been focusing on my writing and branching out into fiction and poetry, which is as surprising to me as anyone. I’m known primarily as a playwright but something about the solitude of the post-pandemic has taken me into a different writing head. I just turned sixty so as far as absorbing any lessons, I’m afraid it might be a little late for that.
Tell us about your show.
Just Like Hollywood is a two-hander focusing on and playing with the relationship between a young woman and an older man controlling her. The initial impulse came after the overturning of Roe v Wade here in America, so while it is at heart a political piece, we’ve been able to expand and deepen it to more of a theatrical meditation and exploration of the contemporary male/female dialogue or duel. Where does the need to control come from? Why the need to please? With all that said, it’s a surprisingly funny play. I like to write about serious things but in the end a play can’t be a lecture, it has to entertain.
What should your audience see at Bedfringe after they’ve seen your show?
There’s a great play out of Canada I’m excited to see, One and the Other by Kent Stetson. He’s a phenomenal writer and this looks to be a timely piece, taking a complicated subject and making it human, visceral.
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