Edinburgh Fringe 2025

#CHARLOTTESVILLE

Priyanka Shetty

Genre: Political, Verbatim Theatre

Venue: The Pleasance

Festival: Edinburgh Fringe

Low Down

Review

“The personal is political” is more than an empty slogan when you’re an immigrant of colour in the USA. Priyanka Shetty came to study acting at the University of Virginia in the liberal town of Charlottesville. She didn’t find it an easy place to live – and then came August 2017 and Charlottesville imploded.

On August 11th 2017, a Unite the Right rally was held which purported to bring the right together (a motley collection of white supremacists, Neo Nazis, Klansmen and far right militia) in response to the City’s proposal to remove Confederate statues in Charlottesville. After clashes with anti-racist protesters, the City declared the next day’s rally illegal but it went ahead nonetheless, and a member of the alt-right drove a car into the crowd of peaceful protesters killing Heather Heyer and injuring 35 others.

In #Charlottesville, Priyanka Shetty weaves together her personal experience of being an immigrant in the USA with verbatim statements including over 100 first-hand accounts from members of the community, documents from the civil trials, and news reports about the aftermath of the rally.

There are accounts from members of the community who couldn’t believe it was their town while others find it only too recognisable. The voices of the alt-right are represented in their own words from the chants at the rally of “You will not replace us, Jews will not replace us” to their double-speak defences at their trials for conspiracy pleading their First Amendment right to free speech. Shetty gives a fine impression of Trump’s speech after Charlottesville which includes the memorable line about the white supremacist protesters, “They include some very fine people”.  Her interview with the mother of Heather Heyden, who was mown down and killed by a car at the rally and takes up the baton against the alt-right is profoundly moving. Shetty skilfully builds up the cumulative weight of evidence of what was a dangerous threat to the very fabric of our communities, a wake-up call long before the January 6th insurrection.

Shetty intersperses her own experiences at the University with the larger picture of the alt-right protests in Charlottesville. In a series of head to heads with the Dean of Studies, Shetty is belittled and dismissed – not being included in activities, jokes about her appearance. Any attempt to name this behaviour, for what it is – racism – is laughed off as just a joke. As the performance unfolds and we hear alt-right statements being read out, the similarities of alt-right tactics of plausible deniability and ‘being just a joke’ are shown as being frighteningly close to everyday racism.

It is an assured performance with Shetty nimbly portraying one character after another with only subtle changes of voice or posture, and her movement around the stage denoting the change of character. Images projected onto the back wall of members of the alt-right with their statements and convictions add to the impact. The verbatim script is skilfully put together and delivered. Altogether it is a devastating piece of theatre.

Directed by Yury Urnov for Richard Jordan and Yellow Raincoat Productions, Priyanka Shetty combines intelligent writing with an accomplished performance to provide a thought-provoking play.

If it perhaps tries to weave together too many strands in the cramped hour allocated to a Fringe show given how much there is to say and its urgency this can be put to one side. (Perhaps there’ll be a slightly longer touring show after the Festival.) As one of the accounts says, “If you’re not outraged, you haven’t been watching”.

And if you weren’t already outraged before seeing this show, you certainly should be afterwards. The pervasive econsequences of letting everyday racism go unchecked and turning a blind eye to the rise of the alt-right are laid bare to chilling effect.

Published August 7, 2025 by Clare Simpson