Kacie Rogers, writer and performer of I Sell Windows at Assembly Fest, is one of the most exciting performers I have seen thus far at this year’s festival. Through dreams, therapy recollections, and moments of tension with her long-term boyfriend, Rogers takes the audience on a gentle journey through the sudden loss of her grandfather. The play is a promising Edinburgh debut from Rogers, full of the humanity and wonder that makes a successful one woman show.
Rogers is a beautiful performer with an excellent sensing voice – some of my favourite moments of the play being Rogers singing excerpts from Fast Car by Tracy Chapman. She holds the audiences’ attention from beginning to end because we are putty in her hands. There were more than a few moments when I welled up, overcome by Rogers’s vulnerability. Unfortunately, one of the defining design concepts of the production competes with Rogers and in some moments overpowers her. I initially thought the loud hum was a feature of the venue, often the case in some of the fringe venues that have been adapted into performance spaces, but when the overhead projections went black, suddenly I could hear Rogers clearly. I was greatly disappointed when I heard the click! and the sound returned.
I wish the creative team could’ve trusted in Rogers’s performance. The projectors were not only distractingly loud but the images they portrayed felt juvenile in comparison to the strength in the acting and writing. Perhaps if it had been a bigger venue with better acoustics this wouldn’t have been as irritating, but unfortunately it was a huge hinderance to an otherwise gorgeous show.
I Sell Windows is on at Assembly Studios, Studio Four, from Aug 14 to 25 at 16:00.
Buy tickets here.
Image by Jonny Marlow provided via Assembly Press Office.