Edinburgh Fringe 2011
Low Down
A very interesting family & life story from the descendant of an American slave, Andreea Kindryd, taking us from the days of slavery to her life working in Hollywood on Star Trek
Review
Andreea Kindryd is a 72 year old woman with a story to tell. Her publicity says that she considered writing a book, but decided she liked talking too much, and this show was the result. It is an epic tale beginning with the heart wrenching story of her enslaved ancestors and moving through the lives of her grandparents move to California and her own career and friendship with Malcolm X and Martin Luther King.
It is a very interesting story and presents an honest picture of the struggles for freedom African Americans have experienced in the last century. Andreea is an engaging storyteller, but the piece lacks flow and seems to jump around without much fluency. There are so many interesting stories which are only touched on in the short 45 minute show, and at the end you are left with a sense of all you haven’t been told and want to know. Although Kindryd generously allows time for questions and clarification at the end, there is a sense that you wouldn’t know where to start with all you want to ask. Perhaps more detail and fewer episodes in this story would have abated this sense to a certain extent.
The stories she tells however are full of humour and affection, and her time in New York in the 60’s is vivid in the retelling, and gives a human face to the eloquent politician Malcolm X, who she used to chat to in the car after a political meeting at the mosque. A lovely running theme is the ‘hair wars’ she used to have with her mother who wanted to straighten the kinks out and style it into a wave. Andreea bowed to this pressure for so long before releasing her Afro triumphantly when working on the set of Star Trek.
Andreea is a woman with a tale and she knows how to tell it! I reccommend you go and see this show and her what she has to say, and I am sure you would be rewarded if you took up her offer of a drink in the bar afterwards! (Which I couldn’t do as (of course) I was rushing to the next show!!
