Review: GUILLOTINE! at Fringe Hub
Review by Greg Gorton
GUILLOTINE! or, A Modest Proposal is a theatrical riot, in the most literal sense of the word. It’s chaotic, even if its creation must have involved planning. It’s exciting, full of energy, noise and light. (While no one will admit this about riots) It is community-building, and clearly forces those active in it, including the audience, to choose sides. Most importantly, there is a hope for violence, the only way that meaningful change has ever occurred in history.
The premise of the show by Anna Piper Scott and Margot Morales is simple: Anna Piper Scott wants to convince you to kill a billionaire. Margot is there to offer support. If one is Churchill standing in front of the radio microphone, the other is quietly loading bullets into guns and handing them to soldiers.
The title is almost self-explanatory. “A Modest Proposal” is essential reading for any political comic. However, Scott is quick to proclaim that, unlike Swift, hers is one to take seriously. It could be asked “why bring it up if yours isn’t satire?” and before the show started, I actually had asked that to myself. Now, all I can think of is whether this show thinks murdering billionaires isn’t quite enough….
Anna Piper Scott’s comedy is confronting, clever, and courageous, with the artist willing to make stands and leave it to the audience to agree or not. While she may be preaching to the choir most of the time, she refuses to let the choir be comfortable in their faith. A joke would bring an audience to tears but before they have calmed she has already thrown genocide facts at them. She thinks the baby hitler puzzle is a solved one, but is willing to give Taylor Swift a chance to lose her money before the beheadings start.
It’s actually weirdly comforting to watch this play out from a character Scott admits “is just an overexaggeration of very real anxiety”. You will laugh the entire show, but that doesn’t let you off from taking what is said very seriously.
While sometimes Scott gets a little too carried away with monologueing, her audience work is incredible. There are many opportunities for audience interaction, which is completely voluntary and non-confronting, but even as a silent member Scott made me feel like I was a part of “the group”, the serious ones who are sharpening their knives.
If Scott is the smooth, enjoyable chocolate bar of comedy goodness, then Margot Morales is a vat of boiling oil. Someone you definitely don’t mess around with, very serious to work with, and willing to spit something at you if you are not paying attention. Dip one in the other and you have the best dessert ever.
But seriously, Morales is the ingredient that takes this show from being “another good Fringe comedy show with a political take” to “Yeah, this is easy to love.” On stage, they are the sidekick, the technical assistant, and the one to take the blame if something goes wrong. But it’s clear that Morales keeps the chaos in check, or at least puts it all together to make something solid. Mute for most of the show (to the point that it was almost disappointing when they first spoke), Morales is all over the tech to make sure this show is the one which has working powerpoint slides. They are also the one to dive into the audience when required, and help volunteers prepare while Scott powers through her presentations.
This team really elevates each other in a way more theatre groups should pay attention to. Good theatre isn’t about who has the most time on stage, who gets the good lines, or making audiences wait until everything is perfect. It is about having the audience walk out being moved.
GUILLOTINE! is perhaps a little too chaotic in its current iteration. Sometimes you must question if there is too much audience participation if you also want to include other forms of comedy, and there needs to be more flexibility for when things don’t go as planned. However, these kinds of “problems” are often exactly the sort of differences that make Fringe shows special, and it is far better to have small practical flaws than to polish the authenticity out of a production.
GUILLOTINE! or, A Modest Proposal is a messy, hilarious show that I want to see again just to find out what I missed. The combination of these chalk and cheese artists makes for a special night that is definitely hard to predict.
