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You Fancy Yourself
A solo show written and performed by core artist Maja
Ardal, directed and dramaturged by Mary
Francis Moore, designed and co-dramaturged by Julia
Tribe.
"In You Fancy Yourself writer/performer Ardal tackles a dozen contrasting types. In this story of quirky adolescence, young immigrant Elsa tries to fit into 50s Edinburgh society where people tend to be suspicious and judgmental.
Though she began her career as an actor, Ardal proved her playwriting skills in Midnight Sun produced at the Tarragon. Here she transforms people from her own history. "I couldn't get some childhood characters out of my mind" recalls Ardal whose own experiences parallel some of the fictional Elsa's. "Two years ago I began writing poetic portraits of them. But because I'm a theatre person, I tried them out in front of people and they took on dramatic life.
Elsa's world contains fronds (Adelle), and enemies, (ramrod-stiff Miss Campbell) but she sees them through the filter of her Norse imagination. "Elsa lives more in her imaginative world than the real one" says Ardal. "She moves from one unreality to another and when the real world punches her in the face she just invents a new fantasy to survive it. Elsa's imagination enriches the lives of everyone around her, but it causes problems too, when she can't find the balance between fantasy and reality."
- John Kaplan, Preview article, NOW Magazine |
