Previous Fringe First winner Brian Dykstra brings his play A Play on Words to this year’s Edinburgh Fringe. A witty backyard comedy, the play follows two neighbours as they argue about the meaning, manipulation and impact of language.

Before the show starts its run, we spoke to Dykstra to learn more about the play.

Monologues and Musicals: Can you start by telling me a bit about A Play on Words? 

Brian Dykstra: Sure. It’s a comedy that expresses, through the relationship of two actually political aligned neighbours, a kind of bifurcation that results within a society operating from such partisan political beliefs that even two people in the same boat have difficulty communicating.  Even when they’re abundantly clear about what the other person is saying. Max and Rusty have been friends for years, are not all that politically active in their swing state, but even they have levels of misunderstanding that just might have to do with how language has been intentionally deconstructed by the partisanship surrounding us all.

In  A Play On Words, two characters are involved in a battle about the power of language. Why do you think this is particularly relevant in today’s world? 

Well, because we live in a time when Americans can embrace an insane term like, “Alternate Facts,” and “Civil Rights” has been bent to protect the “rights” of the oppressor to go ahead and continue oppressing, and “religious freedom” used to grant “christians” (lower case intentional) the “freedom” to behave like bigots. I can’t imagine the play even makes sense in a world in which we are not currently living. That fact that we’re here, listening to word salads from even the president of the United States that come tumbling out in ways that felt impossible even five minutes ago but are defended by staunch supporters who actually have to know better, is the relevance I think you’re asking about.

Did you encounter any challenges while writing the play? 

I guess not. It came pretty quickly. The editing was as much fun as the writing. I have noticed that as time passes it keeps getting more and more topical, which I find super rare in a play reacting to the current state of affairs.

Was it hard to balance the show’s comedic elements and political messages? 

I actually wrote a play a few years back where two lawyer characters used language to obfuscate and confuse their intended target, from whom they wanted to extract an agreement. I had such a ball writing the 20-page opening, that I went into this play with the idea of finding out how long I could keep that kind of banter going. What I discovered was there didn’t seem to be a limit. At least in this play. So, the comedy stayed buoyant all the way through. Maybe because the characters are completely uninterested in making any kind of political message, themselves. They just commit to their in-the-moment needs, so their arguments (accidentally) illuminate the political. There isn’t any “message” speech whereby either of them soapbox what I’m trying to get across. They may get up on a soapbox, but it’s to make a much smaller point than any underlying message I’m hoping to plant. Which, as I think about it, may be some kind of playwriting key I hadn’t actually examined before. Hmmm…

Do you have any projects lined up after the Fringe that you would like to share? 

I wrote a play called Polishing Shakespeare that’s happening at Meadow Brook Theatre in Rochester Michigan in February/March. The play has happened in three theatres so far and Meadow Brook will be the fourth and largest venue. It feels like a play that can have a life, regionally, so here’s hoping this is the beginning of that kind of journey. The play is about a theatre company who’ve commissioned an emerging playwright to translate one of Shakespeare’s plays…into English. The play is based on an unbelievably true story of a major regional theatre in America that “translated” the whole of Shakespeare’s canon into, well, English. It’s a three-character play: the playwright, the artistic director, and a dot.com billionaire. There is a production in the works for another play of that I’m not allowed to talk about yet. And I’m supposed to be acting in a big ol’ three-act play starting in October but it’s still being negotiated so who ever knows?

If you could choose one song as the soundtrack for your show, what would it be and why? 

I don’t really think in those terms but it’s an interesting question. The first song that jumps to mind is “Lose My Language” by Boxing Gandhis. It’s thematic enough to make sense. But I think I’d rather it be more lyric heavy and hip hop, maybe something like “Slow Down, Gandhi,” as the wordplay is great fun in that song. The fact that Gandhi is mentioned in both choices is sheer coincidence. That said, I’m going to have to examine what’s going on in my subconscious to have barked up two Gandhi references to answer this question.

A Play on Words will be performed at Assembly Rooms – Front Room from 6-30 August (not 19) as part of Edinburgh Fringe.

Words by Ellen Leslie