THIS August Ruby McCollister is coming to Edinburgh, which means, in effect, she’s coming home. Because although she grew up in Los Angeles and is based in New York (“I’m coastal trash,” she says), just look at that surname. That didn’t originate in Culver City.
“It is Scottish!” McCollister admits via Zoom first thing on a New York Friday morning. “The lore of it is that my actual name is McCallister with an A, but my ancestors were mercenaries for the Union in the Civil War and when they emigrated to America I guess their accent was so thick that the A sounded like an O to the American ear.”
The red hair might be a giveaway too, come to think of it.
This year sees McCollister make her Edinburgh debut with a one-woman show, Tragedy at Underbelly. She has been performing professionally for “six or seven years” now and her acting credits include Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Deuce and Search Party and cult online series Zhe Zhe. But Tragedy is a kind of homecoming too. It draws on her childhood in LA where her parents ran a theatre and where she became obsessed with all things dark and dangerous. Tragedy is about glamour, fame, addiction and dead actresses.
All bases covered then.
Perhaps McCollister’s interest in the morbid was inevitable. She grew up in the liminal space of a theatre in a city that wasn’t that interested in theatre, surrounded by actors who couldn’t get TV jobs.
“I was seeing the tragedy of failed actors as well as learning about the resident ghost of the theatre. The theatre was haunted by Charles Laughton’s ghost.”
Charles Laughton the actor? Star of Witness for the Prosecution and Mutiny on the Bounty and numerous other Hollywood classics?
“The Charles Laughton, Teddy, 100 per cent.
“So I struck up this obsession with trying to find Charles Laughton’s ghost. And I didn’t really know who Charles Laughton was until much later. I wasn’t familiar with his work. I was more familiar with the fact that he was the resident ghost in my father’s theatre.
“That’s sort of where the story begins of my obsession with the macabre, the sad, the dark. Because theatres are bizarre portals for darkness as well as great joy.”
LA itself can be a pretty dark place, of course. “I like to say for all the Buffy fans, in Buffy The Vampire Slayer Sunnydale is on the Hellmouth. But I actually argue that LA is the hellmouth, that I grew up in the Hellmouth.”
That’s partly why she’s so looking forward to performing in Edinburgh for a month. From witch trials to Burke and Hare, it’s a city not short of the dark stuff.
“My show is largely about the macabre; ghosts and stuff. And an appreciation for ghosts naturally lends itself to an appreciation of architecture and history, so I do love architecture. I love learning about the history of places. So I’m just excited to walk around … Is that the lamest answer? I just want to feel a little spooked out.”
She’s even been dreaming about the city. Good ones. “The dreams I’m having about Edinburgh are quite nice. Deep architectural dreams.”
McCollister has known about the Fringe for a long time, she says. “I sort of consider it the Olympics of live performance.”
The comedy nerd in her means her frame of reference is wide. How many other debutants this year will after all be referencing Beyond the Fringe, Alan Bennett, Peter Cook, Dudley Moore and Jonathan Miller’s comedy revue which debuted in Edinburgh in 1960. “There’s nothing more fun than coming across old comedy footage from the sixties.
“ But within the past 10 years especially,” she adds, “Edinburgh has become an incredibly important place for American acts too. And it does seem to be a space where it doesn’t have to be the most commercial idea you’ve ever come up with. So often you’re expected to have a “tight 10” and it has to be about dating. What if not? What if I have another idea?
“So yeah, the experimentation of Fringe and the fact that it is this sort of global stage is really alluring to American artists.”
It is, she acknowledges, a risk to come to an arts festival on this scale. You can easily be overlooked. But at the same time it’s an opportunity to really push herself, she believes.
“The thing is I’m pretty far out sometimes I’m a very big performer I’m very loud I’m channelling an ancient energy Teddy. And because of that sometimes it’s harder to fit me in festivals. So I’m incredibly grateful for Edinburgh being a bit more out there, where you can come with your weirder ideas
“And obviously there could be some rejection as well. Perhaps. But that’s the risk we’re constantly taking. No risk, no reward.”
Ruby McCollister: Tragedy
17:45
Underbelly, Cowgate, August 3 and runs until August 27 (except August 8)
https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/ruby-mccollister-tragedy
