At Edinburgh Fringe, Topical Playwriting is Seriously Up to the Minute

By STEVEN MCELROY

EDINBURGH - Political theater aims to be topical, but a recent presentation here by Theater Uncut had a sense of immediacy that was notable even by that standard.

Theater Uncut, run by co-artistic directors Emma Callander and Hannah Price and the producer Sarah Brocklehurst, began last spring by making a collection of plays written by U.K. dramatists available online for download and performance. About 75 groups worldwide signed on during the set time period, creating a global theatrical statement for several days in March 2011.

Here at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, which runs through Aug. 27, Ms. Callander has been introducing short plays from the new 2012 series. Beginning Oct. 1 all of them will be offered online for royalty-free performances to take place anywhere in the world for a week in November.

Writers were asked to respond to the current political climate in their own country. (Neil LaBute is an Amer ican respondent.) At the downstairs bar at the Traverse Theater, the series concluded with a moving monologue called “Spine,” by the British playwright Clara Brennan, which puts an imaginatively personal spin on library closings (157 U.K. libraries have closed since April, 2011, Ms. Callander told the assembled crowd).

Then, Ms. Callander announced, she had late additions to the program.

First, three actresses stood, masked and silent, to represent the three members of the Russian punk band Pussy Riot who were sentenced to two-year prison terms for staging an anti-Putin protest in a Moscow cathedral. While the women stood motionless, the audience listened to a recording of the verdict being read at their trial.

Then the Scottish playwright David Greig introduced a 25-minute script he said he had completed just that morning (it was only 11 a.m. at this point). Mr. Greig is a popular writer here â€" his “Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart” was one of the biggest hits of last year's Edinburgh Fringe and has been presented in several American venues, though, curiously, not in New York City. This year, he is represented at the Traverse by a political comedy called “The Letter of Last Resort,” being presented on a double bill with “Good with People,” by David Harrower (“A Slow Air”).

Americans may not be familiar with “The Naked Rambler,” the title of Mr. Greig's contribution to Theater Uncut, and a very real person. Stephen Gough, who does just as his nickname suggests, has been arrested repeatedly over the years for wandering England and Scotland naked, in what he says is an expression of his freedom.

Mr. Gough will stand trial Thursday on the latest charges against him, that he committed a “breach of the peace” by wandering naked near a park in Dunfermline on July 20. Given that he appeared in the buff when pleading not guilty, it's safe to expect similar attire at the trial.

What is the upshot of Mr. Greig's play? The somewhat fictionalized naked rambler begins to gather followers, alarming the local police. Eventually, this rampant nudity causes apocalypse - at least for those who don't strip down and join the movement.