Paul T Davies reviews Where To Belong at Summerhall at this year's Edinburgh Fringe.
Photo: Marc Brenner Where to Belong Summerhall, Edinburgh Festival Fringe
9 August 2019
4 Stars
It's early morning you find the gems at the Fringe. It feels as if it's hard core Festival goers for an early start, and you stumble across something that will stay with you. Step forward Victor Esses who shares with us his space, life, experiences and heart. What makes a home for you? Victor Esses is Jewish Lebanese, Brazilian and gay. This is piece about flight as much as home, his mother fled Lebanon as a refuge of the Civil War.
This is a piece of eye contact, of intimacy and his tales of childhood, and moving stories of journeys. He asks you to find your place in this world of ours, and who we share our lives with. It's gentle, honest, non invasive audience participation, and you will open your heart .
It feels special that Esses is opening his heart to you, and with Brazil electing a Right wing, homophobic President in 2017, his story is even more relevant. It's a beautiful way to start a festival day, and I urge you to accept his warm embrace.
Paul is a playwright, director, actor, academic, (he has a PhD from the University of East Anglia), teacher and theatre reviewer! His plays include Living with Luke, (UK tour 2016), Play Something, (Edinburgh Festival Fringe/Drayton Arms Theatre, London 2018), , (2019), and now The Miner’s Crow, which won the inaugural Artist’s Pick of the Fringe Award at the first ever Colchester Fringe Festival 2021. In lockdown 2020 he created the audio series Isolation Alan, available on Youtube, and performed online in the Voice Box Festival. He is the founder member of Stage Write, a Colchester based theatre company, and his acting roles include Rupert in How We Love by Annette Brook, first performed at the Vaults Festival 2020 and revived at the Arcola and at Theatre Peckham in 2021. Follow: @stagewrite_
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