Edgar in Edinburgh

Since we last checked in on Edgar Oliver, it seems he's taken his successful Off-Broadway show, East 10th Street, on the road to Scotland. The one-man play is set in Oliver's New York rooming house, a crumbling, gothic pile once filled with fascinating characters:

Sharing the top floor with Oliver and his sister were two different lunatics: a rotund, elderly German, Edward Lindner – "Helen and I were convinced he was a Nazi in hiding," reveals Oliver who never went to the bathroom – and in the back room was Freddie Feldman, midget cabalist.

"Freddie tried to kill us on a daily basis, He would steal our empty wine bottles from the trash – of which there were many as we liked to entertain – and he would plant them one by one, lying on their sides on various steps, hoping that Helen and I on our many trips to the bathroom would step on an empty bottle and it would roll out from under our feet, causing us to plunge down the stairs and break our necks," Oliver explains. "It was quite amazing that Freddie was able to plant his booby traps without making a sound, because the stairs creaked horribly."

So how did he do it? "First, he would remove his clothes. Then he would walk up the stairs very carefully on tiptoe, balancing on the very outer edge of each step with his whole body pressed against the wall, then he'd walk up the wall like a fly would. To see Freddie – naked, walking up the wall – was truly to witness the most dread and awe-inspiring of acts," replies Oliver.

I wonder what it would take to bring this show to Chicago. I'd buy box seats.