Capital Fringe Festival's 'Eight': Moving portraits of crumbling lives

By Rachel Weiner
Wednesday, July 14, 2010

The playbill at "Eight" comes with a ballot, carrying this declaration: "Your vote will create tonight's show!" It's not quite as exciting as it sounds. You don't get to decide who dies by fire and who by water or anything like that. What you do decide is which of eight monologues you will see, based on excerpts in the ballot.

Each showing of "Eight" -- running at Redrum through July 24 -- features four sketches. So the "Eight" you see at Fort Fringe may be completely different from the one reviewed here. (The air conditioning will probably remain meager throughout.)

No matter what you see, chances are you'll be too moved to notice the heat. All of these monologues, written by Ella Hickson, feature young, crumbling lives in an economically devastated society. Herself young, Hickson sketches with confidence and power a generation of struggling Brits. Barely employed Bobby (Dawn Collet) just wants to make a decent Christmas for her kids. Astrid cheats on, but can't leave, her disappointing husband. The weakest link is Jude (Kevin M. Costello), a teenager who falls for a much older woman.

Only Millie (Rachel Manteuffel), a prostitute catering to the dying British elite ("my boys," she calls them), can thrive in this world. She's a reluctant vulture, feeding off what's left.