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Edinburgh calls itself the festival city and it’s no idle boast. In August of each year there are five of them I’m aware of, and there could be more. First it’s jazz, then four more that run concurrently for three weeks: The Books Festival, a Film Festival, the International Festival, and the Festival Fringe.

The older International Festival uses the city’s more posh venues, and the Book Festival is concentrated in Charlotte Square in New Town. Here you have three weeks of author lectures, interviews, readings, and workshops, all inside five snow-white tents, and one grimy circus tent reeking of character. The International Festival runs more traditional fare; last year Gustav Mahler symphonies were featured, along with a new Irish play by Tom Murphy.

But it’s undeniably the Fringe that captures attention from visitors these days. Indeed, take a walk down Edinburgh’s Royal Mile, which extends from the famous Castle on the hill overlooking the city to Holyrood Palace nearly a mile away, and you’ll find yourself confronted, cajoled, and captivated by inumerable perfomers from around the world, many in costume, imploring you to attend their productions.

Since the fifties, the Fringe has presented an array of drama, music, comedy, and, in more recent years, unclassifiable stuff meant to shock and amaze. In 1999, nudity, surrealism, and sacreligious imagery seemed to be in, judging by the cards and flyers handed to me. It’s free market capitalism run-amok. The patrons decide what is best with their dollars and their posteriors, which end up in seats in the makeshift venues located in every conceivable indoor space spread along the Royal Mile and beyond. The productions run from about 1:00 pm on past midnight in many venues, and cost $6 to $15.

A few statistics:
Last year’s two performance festivals featured 640 theatre companies in over 200 venues over a three-week time. With the three festivals and every performance added up, the total is over 15,000. In recent years The Fringe has grown as a launching pad for amateur, college, and professional groups from all over the world in this orgy of competition.

And the quality?
As in any free market, it will vary, so the buyer needs to beware. Despite the daunting numbers, it is possible to avoid being overwhelmed and to enjoy some first-rate offerings. Each festival publishes its own guide to performances, and they are all clearly organized with productions capsule-described enough to serve as a guide. All are available on the Internet as well (www.edinburghfestivals.co.uk), so you can look ahead while still at home to find out what will be available.

The Scotsman, one of the Edinburgh’s two daily newspapers, publishes a multi-page guide every day to festival activities. Most helpful is the “hot list,” a listing of the six or eight best performances scheduled for that day. Several pages of reviews for ongoing shows, written in unabashed lyricism, rate shows from 1 (Only go if you’re paid to) to 5 (Kill for a ticket).

You can also rely on instinct. If the card or flyer you’re handed in the street looks intriguing, check out the show, or ask the people at the venue box office, most of them have one. And pay attention in the pubs and on the streets. The word on the good shows gets out as much by word of mouth as anything.

The venues are not hard to find, since they all numbered in the map/guides and also have numbered marquees on the street alerting you to their presence.

My wife and I took in a rock and roll version of “Macbeth,” one of five Macbeths being offered by the Fringe last summer. With its Madonna-like Lady Macbeth and Jesse Ventura-like MacDuff, it did smack more of MTV-ized pop culture than Shakespeare, but we found it a hoot all the same. On another night we caught the climatic scenes of the play in the Greyfriar’s Kirk churchyard where English soldiers popped out from behind tombstones brandishing the wood of Birnam. This group presented the play in various locations on The Royal Mile in a mix of theatre and walking tour.

I took in a fascinating late-night production of “The Fall of the House of Usher” held in the church just steps from our hotel. It featured four actors and merged dance and original music with narrative to put a surrealistic spin on the old tale.

We bought tickets ahead for Tom Murphy’s modern Irish play “The Wake,” presented by Dublin’s Abbey Theatre, as part of the International Festival. Beautifully mounted, it was darkly disturbing in its implications for the comforting myth of the emigrant returning home. The white-haired lady sitting next to me hissed at intermission “What would William Butler Yeats and Lady Gregory (original founders of the Abbey Theatre in 1916) think of this? It’s too terrible!”

For those who want more spontaneity and lower prices, Edinburgh’s pub scene beckons. Music of all kinds can be had, but we took in a traditional session at Sandy Bell’s Pub and were rewarded with excellent fiddle and pipe playing for nearly two hours. And there’s always street theatre up and down the Royal Mile from mid-afternoon on.

For housing, check ahead. My wife and I stayed in Jury’s Inn right off the Royal Mile at about $150 a night. This is steep for many travelers so hostels are one option, though I asked people about the ones on the Royal Mile and got negative reports. For listings throughout Scotland try the Scottish Youth Hostels guide. I suspect that B&Bs in the neighborhoods outside of the Royal Mile and New Town offer better prices as well.

Questions?

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