Back at the Edinburgh Fringe for her second year, Amy Matthews chats to Katerina Partolina Schwartz about her new hour, Commute With The Foxes in all of its lightness and sparkeliness.
If last year’s show was a sort of inky night-time, this show is a golden hour
How would you summarise your show?
The by-line is going to be that it’s about how context completely transforms meaning in so many different contexts within the show. So, some of it is going to be observational, some of it’s going to be more personal about myself, but ultimately, I think I’m going to try create cinematic stand-up. I want it to be really, really visual and I want it to be filmic, so that’s the plan, I’m going to try to create a show that is about the transformative nature of context, but in a way that feels very visual and cinematic. It’s going to be a show that’s a lot lighter than last year; I loved last year’s show, and it was a very important show to me, but unarguably quite heavy. It was quite a heavy comedy show, it had some big heavy themes in it and a lot of light and shade. This year, I’m hoping is going to feel lighter and a bit more sparkly, and a bit more just a bit more fun.
How does Commute With The Foxes relate to your last hour, I Feel Like I’m Made Of Spiders?
I Feel Like I’m Made of Spiders was certainly a heavier show, it contained heavier themes. I still maintain it is first and foremost a comedy show; it’s a stand-up show, it was always going to be, but there were definitely themes in it that were darker, and it sort of meandered between light and shade quite heavily, and this show I think is going to be much brighter and lighter. I think visually and I’m thinking this show is going to be more twinkly, more sparkly; if last year’s show was a sort of inky night-time, this show is a golden hour. There’s a nice, sumptuous lightness to it. It doesn’t narratively follow on, but it’s going to be a slightly more observational show that has two threads; one thread that is observations about society and about where we’re out and where modernity, and another thread that is a bit more personal. So, I’m still keeping that, I’m still maintaining that aspect where there’ll be a thread that’s about where I’m at in my life and what’s going on, but they’ll be interwoven those two threads. But as I say, hopefully in a slightly more buoyant way than last year, so I’m really excited for that.
So how have you found the process with writing a comedy and making sure things are funny but also that that the central narrative is intact?
What I tend to do is start with, so I take two months off of writing anything new just to do some living and to be present. Then I reflect on those couple of months and whatever notes I’ve made in my phone about little ideas and things that have happened, I will look at them and write whatever material organically comes to me and then look at that matter and see what’s the through flow. There’s always something that is linking them without even realising, you know .There’s something subconscious going on where you’re like, “Oh this is what my brain’s attaching to, this is what my brain is interrogating at the moment or observing at the moment.” And for me this year it was both in my personal life and I think any critical aspect in my brain was interested in was absolutely this idea that you can reframe something and it looks completely different, and that seemed like a very natural and organic way to tie a personal thread and an observational thread together. And then once I committed to that, you start writing to brief, you start writing to task and it’s been a really fun show to write so far, I’m really excited for where it’s going.
What is something from last year’s fringe that you’ll do differently this year?
That’s a short answer: I don’t want to use lots of props this year. I had a lot of props and oh my goodness. It wasn’t too bad for the Fringe itself but when you tour it afterwards, it’s logistically so difficult and the anxiety I had about forgetting something or putting something in the wrong place or just have to lug it around or pay for extra on a flight. The respect I have for prop comedians after last year’s show just went through the roof, like when I look at what Spencer Jones does or Delightful Sausage or Lucy Pearman, I am just like, “How are you doing this?” It’s so impressive. So, the short answer is that I will have fewer to no props this year. I’m happy to create my visuals with lights and sound as opposed to physical props.
What advice would you give for people making their debut?
I mean a lot of the advice that you give won’t be listened to because it’s easy to say, “Oh just concentrate on your journey, don’t worry about what everyone else is doing.” That’s so much easier said than done, you can know that logically but that doesn’t help if you feel like everyone is doing better or everyone’s posting amazing things and you’re really sad. And the truth is everyone is really sad and everyone’s worried and everyone’s stressed, but that’s not what people post about online and that’s not what you know reviewers are talking about etc. So as much as you can say that I don’t think it’s the most helpful thing in the world. My most helpful bit of advice to someone debuting is to make sure wherever you can, you get out of the city even if it’s an hour; pop to Fife for the afternoon and see some beautiful beaches there. Just remember that the world is a lot bigger than the EH postcode in August, and it’s an amazing city all year round, and all of that still goes on. Just do something that isn’t the Fringe to maintain your sanity. That’s a very practical thing that you can implement that you have control over. So much of the Fringe you don’t have control over, but it’s something that you can actively do to remind yourself that the world is bigger than this pressure cooker for three and a half weeks.
