Fielding Edlow: Gaslighting is her love language

Award-winning American playwright, actress and stand-up comedian Fielding Edlow (Bojack Horseman) brings her autobiographical tale of marital disharmony to the Edinburgh Festival in Gaslighting is My Love Language; unpicking how she and her husband started gaslighting each other from the moment they met in 2006.

We asked Fielding to tell us more about this 'co-dependant gaslighting' situation, finding the funny and the show's signature cocktail...

You're a writer, actor and performer. Do you prefer being on stage, on screen or at the desk?

I prefer being in a CBD-infused Epsom salt bath with the blinds drawn and my show cancelled due to an international power outage. But honestly... my dream is always being on stage with a completely rum-soaked, plastered audience who says things afterwards like "You looked like you were having a lot of fun up there" or "do you want to be on my mental health podcast?"

Being on screen is a close runner-up but my last silver screen appearance was slightly scarring... I played the silent but simmering stenographer in Behind The Candelabra (the Liberace biopic). I'm not name dropping but I sat around a conference table in an office building "pretending" to furiously type with an unfocused vengeance with Matt Damon, Michael Douglas, Dan Aykroyd, Paul Reiser... and me. And in between takes they were just chattering away for over 3 hours while I just silently stared at my fake Smith Corona typewriter ink ribbon and the ampersand key. Pretending to go over my lines. I had no lines!

I didn't say one word for over 3 1/2 hours, so I was just the frozen weirdo in the corner sweating through her cobalt blue itchy pinafore. They just rattled on about Mao Zedong and how he peed on people, mean nannies, Greek hookers and then Dan Aykroyd slammed his hand on the table and he's like "have you read the Robert Caro book, Lyndon Johnson: Master of the Senate? It's a goddamn triumph! I can't put it down..." I don't know much about Lyndon Johnson but looking back I feel like I could've bullshitted about LBJ and... the food stamp act of 1964... And finally, Paul Reiser took pity on me was like, "How are you doing Fielding?" and I just went [weird guttural noise]. I could've enjoyed some loose conviviality and camaraderie with the top male stars of Hollywood but... instead I chose to stare at the caps lock key - which is a complete metaphor for my life.

If gaslighting was an actual language, what would be the most useful phrase or expression to master?

If gaslighting were an actual language... then I think I would borrow the simple, clipped expression of the French which is "donc...".

You might delicately puff on a Cuban cigar or microdose a sheetcake and then look the gaslighter dead in the eye and whisper... "donc". It will buy you time to figure out what the f*ck they are saying. Keep repeating "donc" and it will hopefully just tire them out... Even saying "donc, donc" will confuse and then mystify them, which is my specialty "co-dependent gaslighting", which again buys you time to FLEE.

Some other useful expressions I have tried: 1) I don't light myself on fire to keep you warm. Or 2) I'm sorry you feel that way, but I was the one who deliberately shrunk your XXL hoodie... Or my personal favourite 3) I thought your performance was "pushed" in your Grey's Anatomy episode that 2.5 people watched and nobody could even recognise you when you were dressed up as a jovial World War 2 re-enactment bomber.

Is this show a handbook for gaslighting newbies and enthusiasts or more of a cautionary tale?

If you're a self-described "gaslighting newbie" or a "gaslighting enthusiast" then you need to STOP everything and get a personality colonic or go build life-saving rafts in Cambodia. This is a completely uncensored raw cautionary tale about long term marital gaslighting/middle aged TEDx talk from an unleashed divorced woman. You will be deluged with my tales of magenta flags (much worse than red flags) and how my waistband and I have been unconsciously uncoupling since the moment we met.

You will hear vivid examples from our dating stages of gaslighting-lite and being compared to Meryl Streep when I was really more like Christina Ricci or Mayim Bialik in Blossom! Hopefully if your partner tells you that you need to be nicer in order for them to have sex with you, then you will asphyxiate them with a throw pillow.

How did you find the funny in a relationship packed with problems?

Larry, my ex, always said if neither of us were funny, we wouldn't have lasted 3 days. We both have a deeply sarcastic, vitriolic, dark sense of humour so when we conversed or fought this general levity was always present. Did you know that the Latin root of sarcasm is "tearing flesh"? Even at the tail end of our worst fights, Larry would say to me, "shall we go out for a 'happy vegan' at Tender Greens?"

Larry said whenever he would walk out on stage he didn't know why, but the audience would just start laughing. And that's how I felt in my marriage. Larry would walk through the front door, and I would kinda laugh to myself - I'm married to an emotional rescue kitten/Irish Shrek who cried four different times during Sex And The City 2. In our most lacerating barbs to each other - one of us would say something so horrendous that it would stop both of us in our tracks and the other would say "that's actually pretty funny". I would say "you singlehandedly brought on your own type 2 diabetes since you shot-gunned regular Coke every night!" And he would respond "you're a chubby chaser". And I would be like, "I know! Elevated blood sugar levels and a severely clogged aorta turn me on."

Larry loved to proclaim, "people think of you as this strong, tough feminist, but you can't even say 'bye' first when getting off the phone with somebody". And I would retort, "At least I don't look like Rebel Wilson with a dick." And we both would say en même temps, "I can't BELIEVE a camera isn't filming us right now". We are both deeply insecure, slightly narcissistic people clawing our way to the middle and we are VERY aware of how deeply flawed we are. My entire stand-up consisted of just publicly taking my husband's spiritual inventory in a torn rock tee and full hair and make-up. And nothing makes me happier.

We were always one unvalidated parking ticket away from somebody getting anthrax in their breakfast cereal and I basically stayed with him for 5 years longer than I needed because I didn't want to leave my "joke generator". And whenever we would get into our umpteenth social media fight, I would always say "all my friends have blocked you... and I have too!" And he would say "I blocked you and unfollowed you, Fielding!" And I would retort "I know you didn't cause you just retweeted my show at a loading dock in Orange County!"

If you had to create a cocktail inspired by your show, what would it taste like?

My cocktail, 'The Gaslight', has to be lightly sipped during a lunar eclipse, a cottage pie in the belly along with a trusted medic on hand to guide you through this unparalleled experience. Your bartender, the magnetic and alluring Magnus, will tell you that this is the greatest drink ever - just like the origin of his name, which literally means "the greatest".

He will say "sip slowly and be near a trash can in case you didn't eat enough dinner to line the acid in your stomach". Once you sip this drink ... you will initially taste the first swirls of amaretto and then the bitters will explode in your mouth followed by a dusting of ricin (the poison they used in Breaking Bad). If you down the drink in one gulp you will vanish in a plume of smoke so not even your iPhone's finder app can detect you any more.

And then Magnus will blame your sudden disappearance on how you sipped it and use you as an example on how not to ruin a party. But one lone barfly in the corner will whisper, "she vanished cause she guzzled 'The Gaslight'" ... shaken, stirred and silently subjugated.