How Not To Make It In America ****

Statistics vary, but it’s believed that only 2% of actors manage to make a sustainable living from the profession. While talent will be one factor, it is not necessarily the defining one. The resilience and courage to endure humiliation, rejection and financial hardship will be required. Yet still, high hopes are in abundance.

How Not To Make It In America follows a young Australian actor, Matt, who ventures to New York in the summer of 2001 in search of his big break. He’s on a 90-day tourist visa, so the clock Is ticking. He’s somewhat under the radar – paying to sofa surf and being paid in cash, working at a video rental shop, but of course below minimum wage.

Matt puts himself forward for role after role, but the odds are stacked against him, especially as an alien. He lives hand to mouth, carefully calculating how to make it through the day on a pittance.

He struggles for connection. He has an uncertain relationship with Michelle. His flatmates seem to regard him as the butt of their jokes. He feels the full weight of the 10,000-mile distance from home.

It’s financially draining enough being an actor – travel, headshots, agents – without the threat of deportation looming. He is tempted to pay an agent over $4,000 to fast track a green card application, which would significantly compromise his already precarious financial position, if he actually had the money. Michelle is alarmed at his naivety and offers to pay his airfare home.

Of course, through the optics of 25 years later, the audience knows that an era defining moment is approaching. The Twin Towers are about to be attacked, and part of the story unfolds against the backdrop of 9/11 and its immediate aftermath.

Emily Steel’s script provides a rich texture for the production, taking us back to the pre-mobile phone, internet and streaming era. She paints a picture of the sights, the sounds and smells of 9/11, but using a non-linear, disjointed structure, which lends the production a fragmented memory feeling. Ground Zero leaves an olfactory residue, akin to burning hotdogs. Telephone lines are down – more disconnection for Matt.

Jono Darby is an accomplished performer. He flits from character to character: the unpleasant – perhaps sociopathic – flatmates, the casting agents, the lawyers, the street vendors, the video rental customers. His transitioning is skilled, the pace excellent and his storytelling engaging.

But at the heart of the production is its depiction of the aspiring actor’s travails. How Not To Make It In America examines the anguish, the disappointments, the misplaced optimism, the expectations of friends and family, the vulnerability, and the relentless pressure to simply survive, laying bear its impact on mental health.  

Many creatives at Edinburgh Fringe will relate.

Summerhall, until 31^st August.