Eric Lampaert Q&A

Does performing the show every night feel therapeutic, exhausting, or neither?

The Edinburgh Festival is a marathon that tests a performer’s physicality, emotions, voice, patience, with each night bringing a different audience, and their unpredictability forces us to keep alert, like gazelles grazing in the Savannah, always on the lookout for a heckle from some predator. So it’s a lot of work to make sure we maintain our energy for the full run of shows. Don’t want to burn out halfway. As for therapeutic, if the writer digs deep enough into their story, it should have a transformative effect, be it during the festival, or in hindsight, as a souvenir from our unconscious, not realising how much good it is suck out the story poison of our past. Zero Minus One is a Hell of a personal story which gave me a bunch of little breakthroughs throughout the process, as I’d discover all sorts of naughty nuggets entangled in forgotten membranes, and pulling them out to show strangers definitely has a healing quality, for both performer and audience.

A month’s worth of shows is draining, but having once lost the privilege of performing live on stage, due to the pandemic and health reasons, I can safely say that being on stage is now done with a gratitude that outweighs the challenges. What a privilege to be exhausted by a life I’ve worked so hard to achieve.

Did living in Los Angeles affect your relationship with ambition and success differently than Europe did?

The American Dream is beautifully presented bait dangled in front of so many of the World’s artists who seek to make the journey to the Golden State for fortune and fame, but then you realise it’s propaganda to lure you into a city mostly made of smoke and mirrors, like sirens beckoning sailors to crash into their rocks. Even the palm trees are radio towers in disguise. Los Angeles is a strange and disturbing place.

And yet, because of the challenges I faced in Hollywood, I was forced to confront my definition of success, and realised I could find it in thesi mplest of things, daily moments that are free. Having lost it all, my job, my money, my wife, my home, my memories, I had to redefine meaning and purpose in my life, and it’s an eerie but welcome feeling to find worth in my work, in my art, in myself, without the need for the constant validation that my career so often uses as currency. I was always chasing it, this confirmation that I was worth something, on the outside, and although at first it did provide an exciting international career, there was a hollowness inside that was never quenched. My exile to La La Land persuaded me to be still, and enjoy the peace, enjoy the simple act of being alive, and from this state, it becomes a lot easier to build and rebuild, because now success is enmeshed in my identity whether the external world agrees with me or not.

It made me realise that I was already living the dream back in Europe, but I just had to change my perspective. I now have more ambition than before, and will continue to nurture success, but it no longer stems from scarcity. Isn’t language beautiful? You can literally change the meaning of words, and therefore, your reality.

You’ve performed internationally for years. Do different countries react differently to vulnerable material?

Whether the material is vulnerable or not, people from different countries, class or cultures react in a variety of ways, even with topics that are universal; love, grief, death, these words are packed with a meshwork of connotations, and one artist’s interpretations can be truth and yet incomprehensible to an audience unfamiliar with the performer’s background. Or the opposite, I spent many months writing a show that had to be refined and edited to fit into an hour, which was quite challenging as I had so much I wanted to say to explain the unbelievable, but if I speak to a Buddhist, I could probably just use the word “Samsara” and they’d likely nod with apathetic understanding. That being said, universal themes through unique lenses are what keep people going to the theatre, it’s why Shakespeare’s Globe can keep repeating his plays over and over again, because they are formed by a symphony of different directors and actors that emerge in ever-morphing societies, so we can see the same story in a completely different way. My show is about love, grief, death, and that’s why all audiences will be able to connect to it, even if they can’t necessarily relate to the specific

details that make my story.

Having lived in France, the UK, the US and elsewhere, do you feel like you’ve developed different versions of yourself for different places?

Cultural appropriation is my culture…

An odd thing to claim considering it’s a noun phrase describing the adoption of elements of one culture by members of another culture in a way that is considered inappropriate or exploitative, especially when there is an imbalance of power between the groups. Having lived in multiple countries with parents from different backgrounds, I’m what’s considered a third-culture kid, a mish mash of different geographies crammed in a body constantly on the move, and seeing as humans are meant to adapt to their environments, I inadvertently adapted to my surroundings, for survival, as everywhere I went, I would be the foreign kid and this often came at a price… Social ostracism and a couple of beatings here and there.

I wouldn’t say that I have different versions of myself because at my core, my authentic self is this version of me that exists beyond ego, that quiet awareness behind my thoughts and emotions, like the sky, always there, even as the weather changes. I have however, developed different personas, the masks that I can take on and off depending on which stage I’m performing, the rolodex of languages and accents that I can use much like the versatility of a mimic octopus’s skin.

When I fell in a deep depression, I would use the English language to describe the experience as I was more familiar with that language, but it would be the occasional French outburst that would force me out of bed, as if the two in my head did indeed have different personalities. The seven years in the USA taught me a lot about life over there, which don’t translate exactly to life in Europe, and the lessons are simultaneously merging with my identity as a whole, and as this other entity, this character I played in a not-so-distant dream.

After going through something like this, what now feels genuinely important to you?

That’s a good question and took me a while to think about…

At first, all the answers that came to me could’ve come out of the mouths of Miss World contestants; peace, love, community, and all those classic but boring responses that we’re all meant to say for fear of social ostracism.

The reason those aforementioned suggestions didn’t sit well with me is because we exist at different layers of the self, and therefore there are multiple options, some maybe even in juxtaposition, dare I say, in quantum superposition.

There is not only the versions of me I’ve been in the past that still have a voice in my present character, but all the possible iterations I could become begging to come to life, and all this noise inside wants to be heard, and herded, all these voices need to become a community, learn to love each other and…. Oh no…. … I’ve gone full circle. OK fine… Peace.

Peace in the world is a beautiful and honest sentiment, but for now, what is in my control, is my own peace. The calm inside myself, which nurtured, can extend to those outside of me. There’s a wonderful quote by philosopher Cornel West which stuck with me when I heard it, as it complements the life I am cultivating: “Everywhere you go you ought to leave a little heaven behind”. And so, after a dip through the river Lethe, a deep dive into bottomless perdition, I’ve emerged from the void knowing Hell, and don’t wish it on anyone, so peace is what is most important to me. Please vote for me as Miss Universe.

Eric Lampaert: Zero Minus One will be at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival from 6^th – 30^th August (not 18^th). For more information visit: https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/eric-lampaert-zero-minus-one