300 PAINTINGS

Edinburgh Festival Fringe

★★★★

“compelling, funny, and, at times, quietly challenging”

Sam Kissajukian opens 300 Paintings by telling us he is quitting comedy to become an artist. It is a ridiculous premise, he admits, and one that becomes the launchpad for a fast-paced, funny, and unexpectedly thoughtful hour that straddles stand-up, TED Talk, and autobiographical theatre.

In 2021, during a six-month manic episode, Kissajukian created 300 paintings, unknowingly documenting his mental state through the process. The show charts this period and its aftermath, skipping at speed through his evolving artistic styles, obsessions, and experiments. One recurring joke is just how quickly he abandons each new phase in pursuit of the next, a habit both comic and revealing. His philosophy, he tells us, is quantity over quality.

The set-up could feel minimal – just Kissajukian, a projection screen, and his story – but his charisma more than fills the space. He knows how to land a punchline, how to keep a rhythm, and how to pull the audience along even when the journey veers from art-world satire into something stranger and more personal. His recounting of a phase in his journey to create 30 inventions in 30 days, and eventually securing a $10,000 investment, is both absurd and oddly moving, throwing up questions about what art is, how we measure its value, and how business and creativity intersect.

There is a self-awareness here about form, too. Kissajukian uses the tools of stand-up to deliver a show that is not quite stand-up, playing with audience expectations of comedy while giving us something closer to a storytelling lecture. The effect is both disarming and refreshing, and it gives space for more serious reflections to land.

Those reflections are often on mental health, specifically his experience of bipolar disorder. At points, he shows us the symptoms of bipolar and depression, triggering that familiar audience reflex of self-diagnosis, only to turn it on its head with a comment about the creative peaks such states can sometimes bring. It opens up a fascinating tension: how far should we push ourselves for our art, and is great work worth it if it comes at the cost of wellbeing?

The simplicity of the staging keeps the focus firmly on Kissajukian as a storyteller. There is a thrill in watching someone take such big risks, not just in the work he makes, but in the way he shares it. His willingness to embrace absurdity and to place his mental health experiences at the centre of his art makes for an hour that is compelling, funny, and, at times, quietly challenging.

There are moments when the pace dips, but the overall effect is one of openness and curiosity, a show that invites us to think about art and mental health not as separate concerns but as intertwined processes. It is messy, human, and really very funny.

300 PAINTINGS

Edinburgh Festival Fringe

Reviewed on 10th August 2025 at Main Hall at Summerhall

by Joseph Dunitz

Photography by Limor Garfinkle

300 PAINTINGS

★★★★

“honest, powerful, and true — and, perhaps most importantly, hopeful”

Many men carry complicated maps of their fathers in their hearts — some routes well-trodden, others broken off mid-journey. In Same, two best mates, James and Lewis, wrestle with the weight of those inherited paths. Do the sins of the father echo through the son? Can a pattern be broken before it repeats? Are the families we are born into the cards we’re dealt… or the ones we would ever truly choose?

Here we meet four characters, all adrift: fathers who have vanished or moved on, mothers who drown their sorrows in drink and drown their lives in a sea of overdue bills, a letter left unopened — the kind that can change a life, or slip silently into dust. Each of them searches for a way forward, a way out, a way home.

This is a finely wrought work, rooted in a subject that demands to be voiced. It is rare these days to see a story that examines male fragility alongside male resilience, one that does not flinch from the emotional weather of men. But Same does more than stage a drama — it holds up a mirror to its audience. It quietly asks: Are you struggling? Are you okay? Do you need someone to talk to? It is a hand extended, not just a curtain lifted.

The piece is still at the beginning of its journey. It probably will be longer or develop some second half that brings the audience into its script and onto its stage. There is much to cherish: the solid ensemble of Brandon Kimaryo, Jason Avlonitis, Miles Dunkley, and Aimee Samara; the vision of creators Francesca Di Cesare and Aimee Samara; the script by Aimee Samara; and a hauntingly beautiful score by Concerto Main, which shapes the emotional spine of the work. Same is honest, powerful, and true — and, perhaps most importantly, hopeful.

Performed in the Olive Studio at Greenside George Street — an intimate, low-ceilinged space that feels like a warm held breath. The lighting could benefit from a designer’s touch to refocus and illuminate the actors’ faces and the delicate intention of the work. Yet, somehow, the story glows from within, finding its own light.

Same may not be your story. You may not leave feeling the same as your neighbour. But when I saw it, it struck a chord that hummed the same in all who were there — an unspoken recognition, that was the same for all observers, as if we’d all been handed the same letter, and finally decided to read it.

Tag Archives: EFR25

300 PAINTINGS

★★★★

Edinburgh Festival Fringe

300 PAINTINGS

Edinburgh Festival Fringe

★★★★

“compelling, funny, and, at times, quietly challenging”