Edfringe Theatre: Characters in Freefall

Richly rewarding though it can be, the Fringe is a battle for survival for many performers. Little wonder that financial strictures makes the one-person play not just an attractive option but the only practical one, or that they often depict characters in freefall.

Sam Kissajukian didn’t even realise that he was in the eye of a mental health hurricane when he made the sudden decision to ditch comedy and becoming a painter (despite no visual art training) a couple of years ago. His show 300 Paintings **** packing them in early doors at Summerhall, tells his story of five frantic months on a manic high when he produced the eponymous artworks. Scrolling through his slideshow, it’s clear he has natural talent, with a bipolar-fuelled capacity to turn out large abstract canvases at a prolific rate. As if that wasn’t enough productivity, he took some time out mid-splurge to become an inventor, setting himself the task of a new concept per day with which he bamboozled potential investors.

After the high came the low – five months in bed – and then thankfully the diagnosis, support and medication so that Kissajukian can not just look back on this remarkable period in his life with the clarity and relief of hindsight but can share some of his work with his enraptured audience in one of Summerhall’s exhibition spaces.

Fortysomething mum Marnie is also on the edge in Son of a Bitch ****, the debut play by comic actress Anna Morris (The Windsors) who zips through this awful but entertaining tale with a deft control and dexterity that her main character can only dream of.

Marnie has gone viral shouting at her young son on a flight home while husband Jake enjoys relative insulation in business class. Morris flashes back and forwards from the aerial meltdown to build the context for the controversy, from the early stages of their relationship to the debates around having children in their forties and son Charlie’s challenging behaviour. Morris inhabits all her characters, including Marnie’s sweet parents, with comic precision, while revealing the light and shade that is rarely acknowledged behind many a social media storm.

Brian Watkins’ Weather Girl **** is essentially a meltdown within a meltdown. Fresno weather girl Stacey is falling apart while California burns. Her bosses want good news but she is witnessing daily the consequences of turning a blind eye to climate change. She is also wrangling with the re-appearance of her homeless, alcoholic mother while attempting to keep up those sunny intervals when all she wants to do is get wasted and break stuff. Julia McDermott gives a dizzying, demented performance as a woman breaking down on air and on the sweltering streets in one of the Fringe’s most potent hits.

300 Paintings, 10.55, Summerhall, until August 26