Do you like weird and impenetrable absurdist drama? The kind of play that seems to bend time with its slowness? Do you find pleasure in watching characters say meaningless things to one another, repeating them, not for emphasis, but for some confounding attempt at profundity?
Is it easy for you to summon empathy for actors who garble their words, miss their cues, speak without actually moving their lips and make no attempt at vocal expressiveness? Who utter dialogue in the flat tones of the robo-voices who ring you at dinnertime on behalf of bogus real estate schemes and fake sweepstakes?
Are you OK with sitting in a below-ground space that’s as airless as a boxcar? No, really, do you find it mentally stimulating to test your limits of claustrophobia in a room so hot it feels like the anteroom to purgatory?
Have you been craving an alternative to the well-produced, expertly acted, beautifully written plays being staged elsewhere at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe? Do you need an hour of wooden acting to remind you what good acting looks like?
Is it on your to-do list to witness a production in which the actors look like they need a hard scrubbing? Would you be interested in seeing three performers engaged in some new form of Method acting that requires them to wear filthy costumes?
Have you dreamed of watching a play with no-name characters (they are called A, B and C) who gabble on about being trapped inside Monet paintings (much the way you are trapped inside the venue) and who sometimes cram their mouths full of pastry?
If you said “yes” to all of these, Paintings and Cake is the perfect play for you.
