the shrinking of the possible

p's show
...
so she did ok in winnipeg
with her show falling people
she didn't do great
but it wasn't a disaster
which it looked it might be when
she got trashed by the free press
two and a half stars
but towards the end she got
good word of mouth
and nice reviews from cbc and uptown
and was half full
...
she made little money
and probably won't do the piece again
why not write a better one
...
and its still shocking to have to
realise again
how cruel the fringe
can be
how all that work
months of writing and rehearsing
culminates in
one destructive review

...
what's particularly telling
is that
well
priscilla's show did not have a linear narrative
she went back in time for a few scenes
and there were references to events in the past
and she revealed the story in bits
so at first you couldn't know what was going on
and only later did the viewer have all the pieces of what was going on
and be able to see the whole narrative picture
which is of course a valid way to structure a story
however
with the fringe
you clearly cannot take the risk of
structuring a show in an oblique way because
the chances are so high a reviewer will
see the piece as muddled
and simply abolish your show in
two adjectives and a couple of
missing stars
and
as reviews are so important
and
constantly threaten to
completely nullify
months of your best work and
creativity
certain aesthetic approaches are made
near impossible
...