We sat down with Smita Russell to chat about her new show Odds Are. With dark humour and raw honesty, Smita Russell explores love, loss and the search for meaning in the face of impossible odds. Based on extraordinary true events, including a rare diagnosis of ‘bad luck’, this gripping story reveals the healing power of storytelling. Playing as part of Edinburgh Fringe, catch this show at Assembly Roxy (Roxy Boxy) from 30th July – 25th August at 14:55.. Get your tickets here.
Thank you for chatting with A Young(ish) Perspective! Introduce us to who you are and what you’re doing at the Edinburgh Fringe this year?
Thank you for having me! My name is Smita Russell, and I’m a playwright and performer from New York City. I use a fair number of gambling metaphors in my show, and I am tempted to play this question fast and loose, if you’ll allow me?
What am I doing here? I’m rolling the dice! I’m taking a big chance at Edinburgh. I’ve got my chips stacked, and I’m going all in! I am hoping fortune favours the bold and the reckless!
A Youngish Perspective platforms accessible arts and champions the huge scope of different perspectives – can you tell us about the show you’re taking to Edinburgh Festival Fringe as if you’re flyering to both a young first-time-Fringe goer and a festival veteran returning every year?
I love this question! Here goes! To the young first timer, I’d say: “Do you want to hear a true story beautifully told? Do you want to laugh, cry, try some inclined planks and marvel at the impossibility of some seriously bad luck? Well then, this is the show you didn’t know you needed to watch!”
To the Fringe veteran, I’d say, “May I interest you in jaw-dropping, once-in-a-lifetime events? How about a show with a proven track record? Something that’s won every major prize and sold out theatres in NYC and LA on the road to Edinburgh? ODDS ARE is produced by a powerhouse team that features a Tony winner and an entertainment exec, who are betting big that the show will win over every heart on this side of the Atlantic too. Step right in to the one Fringe show you’ll be talking about for weeks!”
There is a weight and a burden in secrecy that is often debilitating, you have described this phenomenon in yourself, in contrast you are performing your experience every night for an audience of strangers. What has allowed for this development in yourself, do you think your time at the fringe will enable further changes?
Yes. Debilitating is exactly right. Have you ever tried to hold your breath underwater? It’s not too bad in the beginning, everything around you stays the same, and you do a decent job fooling people that things are okay. Internally though, the pressure builds, panic seeps in, you get this urge to come up for air and that urge only gains power with time. When you finally pop up and take the first, full breath of air? It’s glorious, and it’s exactly how I felt the first time I shared the truth on stage. A very real weight lifted off my body.
Now the secret’s out, and it’s no longer a sense of relief, but a sense of purpose and ownership. The show is pushing others to come up for air, to catch their breath and share their stories. Fringe will be a good test to see if the show resonates as deeply with audiences outside North America. My director Katherine Wilkinson and I will keep tweaking things, no matter the response, because we are perfectionists!
You have described the audience becoming “uncorked”, did you yourself have to become open to enable this sort of storytelling? And if so- did it happen over time or all at once?
It happened all at once. Two years ago, I told my therapist I wanted to gather everyone I knew in a room and tell them the truth. I needed to spill out the entire story, which was so complicated and painful and astonishing that I didn’t think I could share it with people one-on-one. I didn’t have a plan, but I ended up inviting all my friends and family to a staged event — I was the last performer of the evening — and ODDS ARE grew out of that one epic uncorking!
Who would your surprise dream audience member be?
Gwyneth Paltrow is one of my former clients (one of the few I’m allowed to name). I’ve never invited her to a performance, because though she is kindness itself, some of the events in the show overlap with my work with her. The show generally hits people harder if they realise they were in the periphery of the story.
If my memory serves, Gwyneth had just wrapped press for one of the Iron Mans when she saw that I was dealing with something heavy, but she was too polite to pry. Instead she whipped up some cream, put a dollop on some freshly cut strawberries and made me eat it in her gorgeous kitchen. In the show, I detail a couple more instances of kindness and understanding coming from unexpected (and less famous) places. I never did tell Gwyneth what was going on all those years ago, so it would be wonderful to have her in the audience now. It would mean a lot to share it with her. Also, she gives great, full-hearted hugs!