Jim Haynes has
something of a dilemma on his hands. The legendary driving force
behind the early days of the Traverse theatre in the 1960s, founder
of the UK's first ever paperback bookshop in Edinburgh,
counter-cultural polymath and host of the hottest dinner parties in
town in his Paris home is bringing two show to this year's Fringe.
Haynes' return to a producer's role shouldn't come as too much of a
surprise to anyone who knows anything about the man who's probably
the most well-connected man on the planet.
“Yeah, I remember
introducing David Bowie to Lindsay Kemp,” Haynes casually mentioned
one time after I'd told him I'd spent the night before watching
Michael Clark's dance company do a routine set against a backdrop of
the iconic video to Bowie's song, Heroes.
The trouble is, unlike
every other eager beaver publicity person in town, Haynes doesn't
want to oversell them, no matter how remarkable he might think both
The Surrender and Broadway Enchante actually are.
“I'm wary of
recommending things to people,” Haynes twinkles inbetween preparing
for his annual pilgrimage to Edinburgh, “because they go expecting
a ten, and if they only get an eight, then they're disappointed. If
they go expecting a five and they get an eight, then they're happy. I
call it Jim's law of rising and falling expectations, which is also
the critic's dilemma.”
For the record, then,
Haynes' two shows are very different beasts indeed. Broadway
Enchante, as the name suggests, is a homage to the golden age of
American musical theatre by French chanteuse Isabelle Georges and a
full band.
“It's an
investigation into what Broadway musicals are about,” says Haynes.
“Isabelle is one of these women who fell in love with Judy Garland
and musical films from an early age and started tap dancing. I'd met
Isabelle in Edinburgh in a show at C venues called Judy and Me, and
then I saw her do this show in Paris loved it, and knew they had to
take it to Edinburgh.”
A solo female performer
is at the heart of The Surrender as well, albeit in very different
circumstances.
“I wonder how
Edinburgh is going to cope with it,” Haynes says of the stage
adaptation of his friend, dancer turned writer Toni Bentley's frank
and unflinching sexual memoir of how she was liberated through anal
sex.
“It's a sexual
autobiography, I guess, “ says Haynes of a book which caused a
sensation when it was first published in 2004. The stage version,
Spanish film director and performed by actress Isabelle Stoffel, has
already had a sell-out run at the National Theatre of Spain.
“It's about a woman
being dominated,” Haynes says, “and is quite outrageous. It's not
very PC.”
When Haynes is in town,
he will also be celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the Traverse
Theatre, which has come a long way since its bohemian beginnings in a
former High Street brothel in 1963.
The theatre's current
home, its third following a move from the High Street to its
much-missed former home in the Grassmarket was purpose-built in 1992,
and remains arguably the most important venue in the entire Fringe.
One other venue Haynes
will be spending time in is Summerhall, the newest and in some
people's eyes most exciting kid on the Fringe block.
“I love Summerhall,”
says Haynes. “I still love the Traverse, even though it's very
diffferent to when I ran it. It's been institutionalised, which isn't
necessarily a bad thing, but it does make it different. Summerhall
hasn't been institutionalised yet, sand I don't know if it ever
will.”
Haynes quotes Richard
Demarco, who was also a key figure in Traverse history, sand who now
houses his substantial archive in Summerhall, where a fiftieth
anniversary Traverse exhibition will also take place.
“It feels like the
early Traverse,” says Haynes.
One thing that wasn't
possible for Haynes to bring to Edinburgh for the Traverse's fiftieth
was a revisitation by an old friend who Haynes says was the original
reason why the Traverse happened.
“In 1960 I saw an
actress called Jane Quigley in a production of Orpheus Descending in
1960 when she was a student in Edinburgh and was still called Jane
Quigley, and we became lovers. She was the reason I created the
Traverse.”
Alexander went on to
become a star on Broadway and in film, earning herself four Oscar
nominations, for The Great white Hope, All The President's Men,
Kramer Versus Kramer and Testament. In the 1990s Alexander later
moved into politics, with then President Bill Clinton appointing her
chair of the National Endowment of the Arts.
“What I really wanted
to do,” says Haynes, “was to get Jane over to do a show at the
Traverse, but they were already fully booked.”
While ill-health,
including a heart-attack scare two years ago, have certainly reminded
him of his mortality, Haynes remains tireless in his pursuit of the
new. As someone now approaching his eightieth birthday, why, one
wonders, does he keep on coming back to Edinburgh?
“I'm always gonna'
give you a smartass answer to that,” he says, “and say that I
never go back anywhere, I only go forward. I'm going forward to
Edinburgh for the fifty-sixth time this year, and I'm very happy
about that.”
The Surrender, Gilded
Balloon, July 31st-August 26th, 1.30pm; Broadway Enchante,
Assembly Hall, until August 26th, 7.35pm
www.gildedballoon.co.uk
The Herald, August 19th 2013
ends
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