AS write-ups of a visit to Edinburgh go, this one couldn't have been more direct.
Mona Charen, a conservative writer for the Chicago Sun-Times, went to the capital to report on the festival season. Instead, she as inspired to pen a right-wing polemic castigating what she called "Socialist Scotland" and attacking the "repellant" offerings of the Fringe.
Neither Scotland nor Edinburgh lived up to her tartanised image of the nation: she was so disappointed she wrote that her visit was "enough to bury images of thistles and bagpipes very deep … we've come a long way from the bonnie, bonnie banks of Loch Lomand [sic]".
Charen, author of two books - Do-Gooders: How Liberals Hurt Those They Claim to Help, and Useful Idiots: How Liberals Got It Wrong In The Cold War And Still Blame America - was offended by plays including The Radicalisation Of Bradley Manning; Bin Laden: The One Man Show; and Bonk!
However, it appears that she didn't actually see any of the plays that irked her, but read about them. "Just based on the descriptions available in the paper, many of the offerings were repellent," she writes.
Charen, a former speechwriter for Nancy Reagan, was also confused about why the powers-that-be allow such political and artistic behaviour, saying: "The leftist tripe and cultural waste [the Scots are] enjoying is available in every Western capital … The difference, while there still is one, is that the relentless leftism goes almost entirely unrebutted [in Scotland]."
She was also taken aback by Scottish politics. The parliament, she writes, is "dominated by parties of the left. The Scottish National Party, which favors … 'free' education through university, unilateral nuclear disarmament, steeply progressive taxation and the 'eradication' of poverty, holds 65 of 129 seats". Modern Scotland, Charen said, was "dip-dyed in socialism".
For Englishman Toby Tyrrell Jones, 23, who wrote the Bin Laden show's script, Charen's article was a powerful endorsement. He is now thinking of taking the show to the US.
He said: "We were all quite happy to be named in an article like that. If we hadn't upset anybody with the show then we would have been very disappointed. I am actually really pleased that theatre still has the power to make people angry. If the Fringe did not provoke, there would be no point in holding it."
Tyrrell Jones, from Manchester, said the show was not about anti-Americanism but about questioning the truth of everyday news narratives. In his show, Bin Laden, killed by the CIA in November 2011, is played by a polite Englishman who serves tea to his house guests.
Jones said he hoped Charen would come to see the play if he took it to the US. It won the Bobby Awards Sixth Star.
Jennifer Williams, an Edinburgh-based poet from New Jersey who has lived in Scotland for 12 years, said views such as Charen's made America no longer feel like her home.
Williams, a programme manager at the Scottish Poetry Library, added: "I just find that attitude so disheartening. Of course I believe in free speech but I find it almost disturbing that this mindset, being closed to ideas like this, is the overarching political mindset."
On whether she could see a production such as The Radicalisation Of Bradley Manning staged in the US, Williams said: "I wonder how much a press furore would make young film-makers and playwrights afraid to make something like The Radicalisation Of Bradley Manning. Would people picket the show? America is supposed to be a place where you are free to say what you want."
"I haven't lived in the States for 12 years and sometimes feel I am out of touch, but I have a friend who came over to Edinburgh and I would describe her as being in a state of shock at the amount of creativity and freedom of expression on show."
Los Angeles film-maker and actor Etana Jacobson is back at the Fringe for the first time in six years and has previously appeared in Edinburgh shows. She does not believe Charen reflects mainstream views in the US, but she felt the Bin Laden show could be a "harder sell" Stateside.
The Sunday Herald tried to reach Charen for further comment but she was unavailable.
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