Like a lot of us, jem rolls had his plans upend­ed when the pan­dem­ic hit. Unlike most of us, he had to ride it out at the site of a Hin­du shrine in India, where he did­n’t speak the native lan­guage and did­n’t know anybody.

In recent years, rolls has moved from per­for­mance poet­ry to sto­ry­telling, a move that I wel­come, espe­cial­ly since ele­ments of his per­for­mance poet­ry remain in his sto­ry­telling. His per­for­mance poet­ry dis­played a remark­able way with words, and his sto­ry­telling shows a keen eye and a great sense of how to arrange the details. The uni­fy­ing issue for me was the clash of per­spec­tives, from the con­spir­a­cy the­o­rists to ston­ers to the dom­i­nant Hin­du faith to rolls’ athe­ism and then his king­fish-inspired moment of enlight­en­ment. His part­ing gift to the per­ma­nent res­i­dents pulled every­thing together.

On the Sun­day after­noon per­for­mance I attend­ed, he had some trou­ble with his voice, clear­ing his throat often, but this was a minor issue. The show, par­tic­u­lar­ly for tour­ing Fringe play­ers, must go on.