Edinburgh Fringe 2025
Edie
Jessica Toltzis
Genre: New Writing, Solo Show, Theatre
Venue: Paradise at the Vaults
Festival: Edinburgh Fringe
Low Down
In this solo show, experienced performer and now writer Jessica Toltzis brings her formidable acting talent to the story of activist Edie Windsor and her wife Thea Spyer. Windsor’s fight to get inheritance parity for same sex couples is well documented in her home country America but here Toltzis focuses on the love story, bringing a sharp wit and pinpoint physicality to flesh out the headlines and show why Windsor fought so hard for recognition.
Review
The day before an appearance at the US Supreme Court activist Edie Windsor is preparing with her attorney Roberta Kaplan to convince the most senior judges to vote in favour of overturning key US legislation which prevents the country wide recognition of same sex marriage. This is a pretty big deal and Edie is understandably nervous. She relates to her much younger lawyer the story of young Edie trapped in the closet of prejudice and how she was bowled over on meeting Thea Spyer, a New York psychologist, letting her hair down on the dance floor. Their life long romance has been documented widely so no surprises but their rocky start and the power imbalances in their early relationship are given the spotlight here, creating tension and a lot of sympathy for young Edie who is also trying to hold onto a very senior position in an emerging tech world. She has to juggle prejudice in a male dominated field with hiding her love life, bringing a bed-room farce element in the staging which is a very funny set piece. Relating how Edie married a suitable man in order to keep up the pretence is a harder watch for the audience, and rightly so.
Toltzis’ ability to flip from Edie in her early 80s to the much younger woman of the 1960s and then into middle age is a great skill. She holds attention, using every inch of the stage and the simple set in a very precise physical performance which is laugh out loud funny to match the witty script. She delightfully portrays Edie as a career professional in full command at her senior IBM job reduced to helpless infatuation on meeting the charismatic Spyer. She doesn’t shy away from Edie’s own prejudices either, or her uncertainty and at times (understandable) head under the covers survival tactics. This is 360 degree writing and performance.
No credit for sound and lights (a pet peeve for this reviewer!) but they were both used to good effect by director Eli Pauley as part of the storytelling, although the final moment could have been held a tad longer – it is a very big moment after all.
There is a small quibble with the plotting of this new writing. Windsor and Thea had a long life together and Toltzis had to make choices on what to leave out to avoid this play becoming a shallow biography. In focusing on the intricacies of their meeting and the up and down of their early days together, the later legal fight is given less prominence even though this is what the show is sold on. It feels like Windsor and Spyer’s right to be treated equally is still being justified by showing what a great romance they had. One hopes justifications are no longer needed, but of course the erosion of rights in the US lurks in the shadows for the audience. Teasing that to the fore and giving more of a sense of the legal battle for UK audiences (through the lower US courts with no win guaranteed) would have made an already great script even stronger.
Edie is a must see show at this year’s Fringe; Toltzis’ performance alone is more than worth the price of a ticket but this is a cracking story told very entertainingly by the performer and her director.
