Curtain Rising - Index

Curtain Rising - Curtain Rising Magazine - Volume 1, Issue 20 - September 11, 2007 - Index

Curtain Rising
September 11, 2007
A Simple Simple Simple Girl's Girl's Girl's longing for a world that never was
By Andrew Field
Contributor
Inside a small, gloomy cobbled cavern buried in the
foundations of Edinburgh's North Bridge, Melanie
Wilson's solo show was an exquisite, glittering gem.
Dressed in a long black coat with a bright red flower
in her hair, Wilson was a fabulously unusual presence,
eccentric and haunting, a designated mourner for a
lost world of elegance and romance.
Over the course of an hour she told a series of stories
that began in places like Moscow, Paris and Venice
and shimmered with a nostalgic longing for the snow
covered boulevards and noir-ish glamour of a Europe
that never really existed.
Accompanied by her own collection of faintly
absurd recorded sounds and speaking through an
old fashioned radio microphone, Wilson told us
tales of bomb plots foiled on night trains and lonely
wanderings through the streets of Paris. These tales
were interspersed with moments during which Wilson,
nominally as herself, spoke directly to the audience,
asking them if they had any special talents or if they
had ever known savage love.
As the delicately crafted monologue meandered
towards its conclusion, Wilson's lusciously romantic
narratives began to disintegrate. Her stories trailed
off and began again, and ensconced by her brittle
persona, she began to lose her grip on the universe
she had created. Showing through the cracks is a
fragile lost soul, who is not, we are informed, as tall as
people think she is.
Melanie Wilson.
Photo courtesy of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
"I am just a simple girl,? Wilson stated, her wide eyes
gazing longingly out into the audience. And indeed,
buried under the layers of glamour, mystique and
comic eccentricity, there was an honest longing at the
centre of this show that had the audience absolutely
entranced.
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