For Alexis and her friend Jimmy, both growing up in Harlem, there has been no time for childhood. It is all slaps, pinches, punches, hustles and gimmicks. A gimmick can mean many things: a shooting-up kit, a prostitute turning a trick or someone who is a fake. Alexis and Jimmy, respectively in love with words and painting, want to get away from gimmicks, the adults who have betrayed them by sinking into drink, dope and depression, and the streets that offer them no future. They dream of blue oceans and Paris, but only one of them makes it.

Dael Orlandersmith's one-woman show, clearly strongly autobiographical, contains no gimmicks. It is affectingly simple and true, shot through with the resigned acceptance, abrasive humour and gritty sense of purpose that took the fat, unloved little girl off the streets and into the library, where she discovered James Baldwin and the fact that she was not alone.

This is very straightforward storytelling and is not particularly theatrical. But both Orlandersmith's writing and stage presence are striking. At the end we are applauding not just the show but the woman herself, and in this instance, it seems absolutely right and proper that should be the case.

• Till August 13. Box office: 0131-228 1404.

Contributor

Lyn Gardner

The GuardianTramp

Related Content

Review: Artaud in Wonderland

Komedia @ Southside
****

Lyn Gardner

08, Aug, 2000 @11:00 PM

Classical: Schuman Chamber Music III

Queens Hall/ Radio 3 *****

Andrew Clements

22, Aug, 2000 @11:00 PM

Review: Otis Lee Crenshaw

Pleasance Cabaret
*****

Dave Simpson

08, Aug, 2000 @11:00 PM

Classical: Budapest Festival Orchestra/Fischer - Edinburgh festival

Usher Hall *****

Tom Service

22, Aug, 2000 @11:00 PM

Mailer gives up on sexual revolution
He is 77, and needs two sticks to walk, but the American novelist Norman Mailer last night proved he could still kick up a storm by condemning the sexual revolution in which he played such an active part.

Fiachra Gibbons, arts correspondent

15, Aug, 2000 @12:35 AM

Review: The Reader

Assembly Rooms
***

Lyn Gardner

08, Aug, 2000 @11:00 PM

Edinburgh: Circus: Cardoso Flea Circus

Cardoso Flea Circus
Princes Street Gardens ***

Fiachra Gibbons

13, Aug, 2000 @11:00 PM

Edinburgh: Theatre: Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind

Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind
Bongo Club ***

Lyn Gardner

13, Aug, 2000 @11:00 PM

Edinburgh: Comedy: Chris Addison

Chris Addison
Pleasance Upstairs ****

Dave Simpson

13, Aug, 2000 @11:00 PM

Edinburgh festival review: 101 Reykjavik

Filmhouse/Cameo
****

Gareth McLean

14, Aug, 2000 @11:00 PM