Celebrating its tenth anniversary, Fringe Off Milano International Festival, directed by Francesca Vitale and Renato Lombardo, ran from 1 to 11 October. This multidisciplinary festival, including theatre, dance, clowning and music, presented 55 shows (11 of which were international), 215 performances, 84 artists in more than 20 venues scattered throughout the city. Companies, hailing from all over Italy, the UK, France, US, Japan, India, Australia, Finland, gave fringe-goers an opportunity to enjoy a huge range of new writing, characterized by different artistic styles and languages. The bustling Fringe hub at Spazio Bacca and its adjacent garden hosted a lively program of concerts, exhibitions, presentations and meetings with artists and practitioners.
On the Navigli, Milan’s canal area, in the intimate, welcoming independent cinema venue, the Cinemino, I caught Accidental Overheards, written, directed and performed by Lynn. The unusual title of this one person show immediately signals its originality as does the name of the performer, writer and director, simply called Lynn. To perform the show all Lynn needs is a chair, a mic, and a stack of A4 sheets of paper, strewn on the stage around him. The show opens as he picks up one of the papers, seemingly at random, and starts reading aloud. However, as we hear what is a cycle of short stories, it transpires that this keen observer of everyday snippets of conversation has methodically and meticulously gathered them on his travels to Bologna, Zurich, Istanbul, etc. With each story, the performer starts from what he calls an ‘overheard,’ which is repeated several times, like a refrain. The first story, which kickstarted the cycle in 1999, was something Lynn overheard in America, his homeland. He opens playfully, “What my wife and I really love about Seattle is the wide variety of shoes available,” and proceeds to detail, with and gentle irony, fragments of everyday happening in the provinces. Another story opens in an absurd, almost surreal domestic setting: “She’s like, let me make you dinner. And what does she make? Eight portions of pasta and lettuce. What is this? Eight portions of pasta and lettuce. What game is she playing?”. Once the narrator has informed us that this specific ‘overheard’ was picked up on the 341 bus in London in 2025, he goes off at an increasingly insidious tangent, as the woman’s possible motives for making the pasta fire his vivid imagination. Instead, a trip to Zurich in 2023 rings with the refrain, “Cartier’s this way,” in which an impeccably dressed and bejeweled woman, turns out to be a money launderer and cryptocurrency scammer. What impressed themselves in my memory were Lynn’s keen observations, oddball characters, and imagined worlds which he conjures up with deadpan humor and irony, reminiscent of Buster Keaton.
This post was written by the author in their personal capacity.The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not reflect the view of The Theatre Times, their staff or collaborators.
This post was written by Margaret Rose.
The views expressed here belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect our views and opinions.