Review: Eidolon (Fringe)

by joel fishbane

Most people come to the Fringe with a one-person show, but this is the first time in recent memory that the one-person has been a cello. Cellist / composer Francesca Mountfort lets her instrument do all the talking in this exquisite concert that mixes film, music and abstract expression. 

Mountfort, who hails from Australia, stays completely silent in her china doll make-up: words have no place in this eclectic show that seems perfectly comfortable in letting you walk away with whatever you can. Being the pessimistic sort, I was struck by the sorrow of the music and found the compositions rich with both whimsy and melancholy. Perhaps it was the persistent sound of a ticking clock, but something in the concert left me with a deeper sense of my own mortality.

It’s not your average Fringe show which is all the more reason to check it out. I’ve done my best to describe it, but some pieces simply defy description – and pieces which defy description is pretty much why the Fringe exists. Eidolon, an ancient Greek word for spirit or apparition, lives up to its name. Like a travelling ghost, the show is an ethereal experience that passes through you and leaves something intangible in its wake.

Tickets

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