James Dalton, a performer and songwriter from New Jersey, is performing his show "Asbury Park & Me" at the Reykjavík Fringe Festival in Iceland. He will be blogging for NJ Stage from the festival. Click here for all of the blogs from his trip.
The sun goes down and all, but as you may have heard, it doesn't get dark here in Iceland. It's continually light. My first night here, before the supposed "sunset" that happens just after midnight, there were people on the basketball court nearby shooting hoops. Quietly and all, but for reals, unless it's cloudy, it's as good as daytime and if you need it to be dark to tell your body to sleep... good luck.
Day #2 was not as long as Day #1 felt, but it was very eventful. These first two days of the Fringe were about participants getting to know each other with meet and greets and some initial showcases. I took my time getting up, for some obvious reasons of straight up exhaustion, but bounced around a little. I had food shopped and even found a funky coffee/gallery space called Reykjavik Roaster, a small chain in town a short walk from the hostel I am staying at called Baron's Hostel, which is, by the way, very conveniently located a short walk from Hallgrímskirkja, one of Iceland's largest structures sitting on top of the city's highest point, making it one of the more iconic landmarks. It'sa Lutheran church with an incredible pipe organ and some wild artitecture and one can buy a ticket to get up the tower for what I can imagine is one heck of a view, a view I plan to catch in the coming days...
Also, next to my hostel, conveniently for me because the Fringe organizers had organized one of the meet and greets there is Sundhöll, the oldest public baths in the country. Yes, the bathing suit and I literally joined a handful of Nordic actors, dancers and comedians for an afternoon soaking in the jacuzzis, sweating in the steam room and plunging in the cold pool. I don't know if any of that stuff really aids my health, but I think it did help me bounce back from my marathon travel/first day extravaganza. When you've been totally cooked in the steam room to the point where it's too hot in there to open your eyes and it's time to do a cold plunge, with Swedes, Finns, Icelanders and Latvians looking on, I had to represent Jersey without flinching. Which I didn't. Boom.
After a few hours at the public bath, I had to turn my head towards a few other priorities such as lunch and my two showcases later in the evening. Some of the performers were heading Icelandic Street Food. We made our way through the light rain towards the harbor and once inside, I discovered that this place was all about a good time and some proper hospitality. Soup in a breadbowl...with unlimited refills. Free waffles. A bearded gentleman, the man behind the counter shout "free waffles" when they were being served up, was also giving out free shots of something Icelandic. Everyone was smiling, the playlist was old, oldschool and I basically, I straight up highly recommend this place.
Ok, showcases. Sporadically, I'll be mentioning more and more of the performers that I have met and watched, and it's likely I'll just do a whole name-droppy post for just that purpose. In the meantime, my first audiences here in Iceland were on day 2. The first showcase was this crazy two minute bit preview thing where all performers were invited to the stage, one by one, and literally had two minutes to pitch their show. Some brought video, some came on in character, some did excerpts. I decided if i wanted to get people's attention, especially a room full of stage performers, i was going to have to just bring my harmonicas on stage and do a bit of the footstomping, shouting blues harmonica thing I've been doing for years, whenever I needed to do exactly this-get people's attention. Asbury Park & Me, the one person show I am over here pushing, is pretty wide open. I'll talk more about the show itself in the coming days, but what's important to know is that it changes, it's got room to breathe and at any given moment, I can follow it down any road I choose, both in stories and in songs. So, showcase number one for the night was my song "Sugar Mama".
Showcase number two, which was much more late night and "crazy" took place over at Gaukurinn. I feel like this might have been a space where some of the harder rock and metal bands were playing in town AS WELL as comedy and drag shows. I was added to this showcase, along with a crew of high energy stand up comedians, and characters. Even a guy dressed as a viking screaming at the audience. My choice, as the last act of this collective, that person closing the show out, I stepped on stage having asked Andrew the head of the festival, who was now Linda, the host of this show, to warn everyone that I would calm things down.
My choice was to ask everyone to chill and if they wanted to sing along with me, and even dance with one another, as I would play one of my favorite songs, "Can't Help Falling In Love With You" from Elvis. Everyone sang along sweetly and it was beautiful.
I'm very lucky.
I'm typing this in the AM of day 3, Wednesday the 28th, 9am-ish Iceland time. My first couple days done, I've got my first big show later today. AP&Me has played the Brighton Fringe in Brighton England, the Stephen Crane House and the Showroom in Asbury Park, New Jersey, the Soho Playhouse in NYC and today, the Reykjavik Fringe Festival in Iceland. It's changing and evolving and I can't wait to see what it does today.
Thanks for reading!
Once again, for questions and comments, email me at jamesdaltonjr@gmail.com
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