Fringe on Fringe: Borrowed from the mouths and minds of Inertia

By: RobYn Slade Posted: 3:00 AM CDT Friday, Jul. 28, 2017

Dear Hamlet,

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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 28/07/2017 (2971 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Dear Hamlet,

This isn’t a letter for you.

I should make that clear.

Dear Reader,

This isn’t a letter for you, either. And this convention is borrowed from the hands and mouths and minds of the cast and crew of Inertia (Rachel Browne Theatre, Venue 8). I should make that clear. Is it clear?

Things became much clearer after I sat in the dark and watched the people in the play who were younger people when I was a young person saying the things that I wish I had known how to say when I was a young person.

Inertia made me laugh. And worry. And worry-laugh.

I watched Erin Meagan Schwartz don a referee’s jersey, conjuring competition, spontaneity, familiar territory and my bones hurt.

I watched Davis Plett cut Gislina Patterson’s hair, leaving her alive but uneven, and my stomach tightened; something is taken from us every time we appear onstage.

Dear Hamlet,

This isn’t a letter for you (but if you’re reading it, and it makes you feel weird, it’s probably about you).

Your tendency to resist change, Hamlet, is repugnant. Thank you, Inertia, for giving us the ingredients to excise these theatre ghosts: a warm beer, a dash of glitter and the torn-up tickets from the shows that tear us apart and put us back together, different, but whole.

Love,

RobYn

RobYn Slade is an actor, improviser, and instructor. She appears in Outside Joke: The Improvised Musical at the Gas Station Arts Centre (Venue 18) until Saturday, July 29.