On a sunny, holiday afternoon in the Bridgend valleys most of us, adults and children alike, would be outside playing and pottering about or off on day trips, forgetting that we only have to look to our doorstep to places like the Berwyn Centre in Nant-y-moel for entertainment. Yet, wonderfully, on this particular sunny afternoon an eager crowd of voices sat waiting for a puppet performance of Peter and the Wolf by Sea Legs Puppet Theatre in conjunction with Night Out.
The Story Teller (Rob Ashman) set out an integrated one man performance with puppetry, adapting the story to include his ‘Story Teller’ character which enables him to interact with the audience as well as tell the story via puppets. Here Old man Prokofiev invites Rob to Russia in order to tell him a story, here Rob proceeds to take his trip with suitcase and all – his puppet stage cleverly disguised as the suitcase. All the traditional characters are there, as beautifully crafted puppets and represented by varying accents and tone of voice: Peter, Redbird, Duck, Cat, the two lumbering hunters and lastly that big scary Wolf with its frightening yellow eyes. The puppets and set steal some of the thunder, lovingly crafted with bright colours and intricate pieces – the screen behind painted to depict the Story Tellers home and the Russian continent.
The piece was filled with all the tension and drama that it should have as an oral tale, yet it was filled with humour suitable for all ages. The mix of humour and drama kept everyone engrossed and willing to interact with Rob and his characters, from shouting at the cat to answering Rob’s inquisitive questions. As the tale goes brave little Peter cleverly over comes the wolf with team work and ingenuity having disobeyed his grandfathers express order to not play in the meadow.
Night Out is a community scheme for Wales that brings touring entertainment to the smallest of village halls and community centres providing a cheaper, local alternative that is sure to entertain.
There was an opportunity for the children to go meet the Puppets at the end
For more information on future Sea Legs Puppet Theatre performances visit their website here Information on Night Out events or getting involved can be found here
Thatcher’s in power, and the City is heading toward financial meltdown. Caryl Churchill’s satirical play Serious Money was brought to Chapter Arts by theatre company Walking Exploits, as their first production and they brought the house down. Intriguing, dynamic and intense action fills the theatre as you take your seats and continues throughout.
Serious Money is a play as apt now as it was in the late 80’s: the environment of suspicion surrounding the banks, stockbrokers and traders as a result of their current fall from grace. Nestled amongst the upper echelons of the American and London financial worlds with alcohol and drugs on speed dial, greed is the driving force. It is a serious comedy of insider trading, scandal and apparent suicide where the world of the characters slowly collapses around them as they trade to within an inch of their lives, and their money. Dealer Jake Todd is found dead in an apparent suicide as a result of ‘insider dealing’ but his sister Scilla suspects otherwise and begins to investigate, as the puzzle pieces appear his crimes become apparent and it is his ill gotten millions she turns to searching for. Alongside the hunt for the dead trader’s millions is a second voracious hunt for power and money in the acquisition of innocent little Albion by Billy Corman and his double crossing investors, a bid in which Jake Todd was involved, as more and more floods to the surface and as Albion at its White Knight fight back moral vanishes and the bid fails spectacularly.
With 20 characters shared between 8 actors the show is nothing short of complex yet with swift simple costume changes the actors melted from one character to another – their accents transforming fluidly. The stage is full of chaos: phones ringing, character’s having two or three conversations at once: gesturing, swearing and shouting across the stage as they fight to make more and more money. There was a regular stream of food being eaten, alcohol and coffee consumed as the characters, adding an immediacy and realism to the activities.
Whilst I did not understand the purpose of the grass floor it did add colour and having a bare stage floor would have taken something from the production. At times the pace picks up so quickly that it is hard to focus on a single exchange and the streams of numbers and statistics flying past were confusing but all as part of the play to represent the financial world. Even though I did not understand the trading language I didn’t really care: the lyrical language, fast pace and satirical barbs kept me utterly engrossed and laughing. Particularly the endings of both acts: where trading sessions transform into intense, in your face rapping sessions, creating a platform in which to close the high energy piece on a high. "These are the days of our lives"
Walking Exploits and their director Mathilde López re-create the balance between comedy and dark poetry at the centre of Serious Money in this hilarious, modernised version: it leaves the audience catching their breath at the end. They have done well in bringing a relevant, contemporary work to the stage and pulling it off with panache, especially as this is the first time Serious Money has been seen on a Welsh stage.
There was something different to walking along Aberavon Promenade on Good Friday afternoon; an electric atmosphere was building as hundreds of people headed to the furthest end of the promenade. It was to be the first of a weekend of events as part of The Passion, a play of enormous proportions.
The Trial (Sunday)
Conducted over 72 hours The Passion started and ended on the beach but events took place across the town, from the scheduled events to ‘ad hoc’ scenes and musician’s that seemed sneakily placed to enhance to the atmosphere and get people talking. Talking, that’s what it’s all about, none of this was about theatre for theatre’s sake; it was about a community, a people and a place and bringing them together to step into the future. Port Talbot really has been ignored and belittled by so many – I rarely stop to take it in, always driving past for Swansea or further west and I should know better: my own home town often suffers the same style ridicule.Listen carefully across the three days and you could hear neighbours talking as if they’d never spoken two words before and towns people who a second ago had been complete strangers.
Inside the Shopping Centre 'Memories of Port Talbot'
For all the fantastic community spirit and galvanised atmosphere I can only praise all those involved. Tackling such a huge project head on is a fabulous feat in itself but there were moments lacking certain clarity, noticeably more on the Saturday afternoon where what seemed the non-organisation of the three simultaneous events caused considerable confusion, people were unsure where to go or what to do. Throughout the Saturday I was disappointed: The Passion although advertised and intended as an open event - where you didn’t really need tickets and everyone could go and see – you couldn’t always see, for instance on Llewellyn Street it was primarily performed on the flat those at the back and some even with the ‘wristbands’ were at the back missing the bulk of the action.
Having missed the Friday and Saturday evening events I feel that I can’t give an all round picture but one thing I do not regret is getting my hands on the novella’s created by the scripts writer Owen Sheer’s. Reading those whilst waiting on Sunday cleared up much of the confusion and provided a greater sense of involvement.
Throughout it was Sheen’s mysterious and often silent presence as ‘The Teacher’ that has enticed, encouraged and carried the production with ‘The Teacher’ listening rather than teaching it made it more about the town healing itself instead of it being healed. As if the town remembers its past, as The Teacher remembers his past and they heal together.
The Passion is the final feather in the NTW cap for their first year of productions and they have done what it says on the tin: creating community centred, often very ‘Welsh’ piece’s to draw together personal, unique stories against the backdrop of a larger concept.They have ended the year with their biggest project yet; a production that at once frustrated, tugged at the heartstrings and tenderly reached out to everyone, hopefully leaving the Port Talbot community looking eagerly at an ostensibly brighter future. Following it as a Young Critic has been one heck of a journey so far and I am curious as to what rabbit NTW will pull out of the hat next!
Desire Lines is a play that pulls open the lives of individuals as they jaunt along on their journeys, analysing who they are in a country still coming of age.We meet ‘Man’ on what is likely to be his final train journey around his ‘small country’ and as he travels his memory comes alive, taking us through the choices of his youth, middle years, his loves, losses and regrets.
‘Sorry’: such a small word that means so much, are we sorry we didn’t hear what you said? Or sorry because as a people that is what we have been conditioned to say? If so, what are we sorry for exactly? There is something quite welsh about that, how an invisible border can affect so much and so little.
Younger Woman:
I just want our child to grow upIt’s time to go home, Adam.
Not believing that he has to get our Time to go home because I want our child to believe
To be big; In himself,
As you tried to be. In his country,
I don’t want our child to believe the shitIn his own language.
you swallowed.Not to feel the constant need to ask for permission to ‘be’
In their tongue
To be constantly sorry, sorry, sorry!
It stops with me!
With us...
With him
Along with these, there were other flashes of brilliant dialogue that that struck a chord, in a country still growing and with an increasingly greater voice; many of the younger generation find the need to ‘find themselves’, to prove they are capable of greatness. Yet there is greatness on their doorstep and many are simply too focused on the negatives to see it. The younger ‘Man’ is a perfect example of this as he leaves searching for the ‘big city’ only to come home later on.
Trains are the perfect place for memories, stuck with little to do on a fixed track, thoughts and memories will take over. Rowlands has capitalized on this idea, layering his character’s dialogue over one another as thoughts. Whilst this technique does make it noticeably difficult to pick the language apart and understand what is going on, it does represent a level of reality. Those moments of audience difficulty are disappointing, in the face of such poignant other moments of heartfelt emotion and comedic brilliance. We are all forced to overhear inane and annoying conversations eventually on public transport and Man’s reaction is hugely comic, how many of us have wanted to grab that idiot’s phone and chuck it out the nearest window? Or scream at the idiot on the other end? Do we really travel alone on a train? Or are you with those passengers around us? Passenger interaction is rare but the surrounding chatter and noise ensures you are never left alone.
The presence of some characters perplexed me, whilst capably performed by Joshua McCord the stereotypical intellectual youth and ignorant yob might not be out of place on a regular train but they have little place in the play. Except for the scene where he is seated next to ‘man’ for his exchange as the young gay man and the expert transformation into the son by ‘man’s’ invading memories, it felt like he was a bum on seat actor to represent a ‘typical’ train journey.
‘Old Woman’ stays silent for the majority of the play, following ‘man’ as he makes his way along. Occasionally her haunting, beautiful voice fills the space with old Welsh language tunes, bringing a feeling of peace that can only be found when a soul returns home. Between her and ‘younger woman’ they bring the voice of reason and truth that seems lacking in ‘man’s’ life and it is left to older woman’s ghost to bring man to his final stop, a journey he, inevitably, must take alone.
Ian Rowlands attempt to objectify each place comes as a mixed bag. He almost universalizes the towns as ‘Dullage’, ‘Chavton’, ‘Our city’, ‘Ugly’ or ‘Bluerinse Bay’ and really, they could be any towns on any train journey. Although each name is a mischievous dig or a sneaky nod to places with certain reputations: ‘Our City’ is Cardiff, a vibrant up and coming cosmopolitan that makes us proud versus ‘Ugly’ and ‘Chavton’ as Llanelli and Rhyll respectively with reputations of dirty industrialisation and poverty.
Desire Lines is a play that brings out mixed opinions, heartfelt and emotional it had me welling up one minute and laughing freely the next yet those moments of laxness left me frustrated and wanting an explanation. It is at once a play of Wales and Welsh and a play of human life and its choices. It is up to the audience which piece of the play they take away with them.
Sherman Cymru
At Chapter Arts until 23rd April on tour til 3rd May
#Fly on the Wall: a Citrus Arts project grown from the support of Wales Millennium Centre as part of their incubator project. It was birthed in the aftermath of the G20 Summit and Iranian protests of 2009, but in its current form it is based more around more recent events examining the real voices in the protests. Citrus Arts have researched every angle of the protest world, taking genuine accounts from individuals involved in the protests and creating a cacophony of voices fighting to expose the truth. There are activists, anarchists and bloggers who all want to be heard; the police officers are doing their impossible job and calling it duty; the bankers and politicians display the power to ignore those at their door yet have a history of their own.
Politics is no longer in the hands of the politicians, far from it. As a mobile, digitally enhanced world we have the chance to voice our own opinions and make them heard. It is very much an age of the armchair protest: ‘#’ is an inconsequential piece of punctuation at the centre of debates, it represents this powerful change and even the smallest, quietest of voices can be heard in Twitter’s 140 characters or Facebook’s status updates and the myriad of Youtube video sensations and bloggers commenting on their world.
The show opens with the cast camping festival style, the night before the protest, along with the very Alice in Wonderland White Rabbit. As protesting has become a widespread activity for everyone it has developed a carnival atmosphere with singing, dancing, animal characters parading around making themselves noticed. There are poignant moments across the fantastic wire acrobatics, precisely choreographed moves and dancing. One cast member finds themselves wrapped by a stream of newspapers, trapped by the daily avalanche of information with nowhere to go, fighting to get out, tearing at the restraint. Another, suspended above us, tries to attract a politician’s attention and as the performer gets ever closer he also gets further away and the politician persistently ignores him, no matter how he shouts kicks or waves his flag: he is left spinning trapped by the wall of silence presented to him. The acrobatics involving the crowd barriers was cleverly done, representing a determined attitude to be heard no matter what or who stands in a protestor’s way.
With their own brand of physical theatre Citrus Arts have focused on their skills and idea’s rather than dialogue, although there is no need for structured dialogue and plot: environment and theme do all the work necessary to present a brilliantly developed piece about a singular ambition to get voices heard.
Protest? We do have to, who else does it fall to if we don’t give our opinions? If the general populace stays silent we cannot change anything, the hidden truths will never see daylight. For me #Fly on the Wall is a reminder to be determined, never losing faith in speaking up.
#Fly on the Wall will be atGaleri, Caernarvon on 13th May
"The time is the present and the place, a country that is probably Chile but could be any country that has given itself a democratic government just after a long period of dictatorship."
What struck me were the stark similarities between events 20 years ago and those of the present day, the play’s content is as relevant now as it was then and there are elements of the world that haven’t really changed in two decades of technological, political and social change: the location simply changes. The difficulty with Death and the Maiden is it cannot decide whether it is set in Chile or is somewhere else suffering similar oppression, whether this was a conscious act by Ariel Dorfman in order to avoid repercussions I cannot speculate.Making reference to known methods of torture and government commissions yet never once mentioning Chile, General Pinochet or the name of the proceeding President gives ambiguity and allows it to relate to modernity but that also frustrates, it feels like it should be one or the other.
Engineering a small, confined set mirrors Paulina’s life, as Gerardo points out:she has secluded herself and not moved on with her life so she lives within a small circle and routine.The set also accentuates the darkness, the intensity created by the situation and back story – there is nowhere to run from this secluded beach side retreat. The moments of ‘lights down’ when shadows fill the gloom are orchestrated with sharp clarity – the moment Paulina’s resolve breaks and Miranda becomes her victim would not have had the same effect had it been done with the lights on full. The dimming and brightening of spotlights as Paulina tells the story and he writes his ‘confession’ creates poignancy, except for the distracting stage ‘clearing’ that can be accidentally heard all too clearly in this performance.
The gun: a stage prop that provided the biggest shock, I was not expecting it to be fired yet after momentarily recovering I recognised that it should have: it’s firing seals Gerardo’s opinions of his role in proceedings and Paulina’s resolve to see her actions through. The play takes this point to shift gear towards the end; Paulina is no longer a prisoner in her own life unable to forget or forgive.The violin playing throughout has a key part, it complements the darkness and solitary confinement within the characters lives: it sets the scene at the start and provides increased tension throughout. I did find the single, drawn out note near the end difficult to comprehend – it was an unnecessary addition to a piece progressing skilfully and creatively as an entity and within Chapter Arts Stwdio space.
Gary Knowles’ Dr Roberto Miranda is a convincing yet ambiguous character, you never find out if he truly is the man behind Paulina’s torture. Are the ‘alterations’ he makes to Paulina’s story fed via Gerardo the accidents of a man under intense pressure or the truth of a twisted, guilty perpetrator?The tone of voice lends to the quiet, innocent man he professes to be and gives his dialogue the intensity it needs. The intensity of Paulina however, does come across as slightly monotone: her tone and voice level perfect for moments of high intensity and emotion i.e. when Gerardo finds Paulina has kidnapped their guest and each time she brandishes the gun. Paulina’s strong, loud, demanding voice could be softer in order for the audience to hear and see her pain – Gerardo’s softer tones are more suited to his role, having to talk Paulina down, but his character could gain strength and power in more places by varying tone and volume: where you feel he should be arguing with her, not begging. Their fleeting argument over the car jack is a perfect example of the loving, familial sides to their characters that invite momentary tonal changes and an insight into the people they can be when the trauma of torture and oppression does not hang over their heads. Voice is a key part of the play as it is Miranda’s voice that Paulina recognises, bringing her past flooding back and causing the ensuing drama. Fifteen years of silence and a single voice can change everything.
In death are we little more than a statistic? Or is there more to it than one death for every half a second? With a production that resonates with the soul Beachy Head sets out to cleverly bring the individual and emotions out from behind closed doors and off the sheet of paper that tells us that 1 in 9000 deaths are suicides. Beachy Head addresses one man’s suicide and the ripples that the action causes and the extraordinary circumstances of a suicide being caught on camera than the death itself.
With no sign, no warning it has been a month since Stephen jumped and his wife Amy is picking up the pieces, trying to understand why and struggling with the box that Stephen’s life has been reduced to. Filmmaker’s Matt and Joe on the other hand struggle with the morality of the 8 seconds of film capturing Stephen’s last moments, after all what do you do with footage like that? Delete it, or is that disrespectful? Use it and build a film around it? In Dr Rachel Sampson’s world it is clinical, scientific and removed. Her role brings the emotions and confusions back to earth but without the cold hard slap, it creates a balance that allows us to see the facts behind suicide that no one thinks about.
The use of the multimedia is cleverly played out, weaving theatrical and filmic techniques that produce a film within a play, a reverse of what film has done before. As the filmmakers build their documentary the story plays out and character monologues become talking heads and the audience is brought in to represent the masses. Very little is pre-recorded; all the ‘hand held’ camera work is fed through a live studio feed onto the screen. The use of the eerie musical sound-track sound track and visions of the cliffs brings a realistic outdoors into the artificial inside space.
Steven’s character is never fully explained: “He didn’t share what was in his head” (Amy) and his often silent, fleeting presence on the stage deepens the mystery. Concluding that you never really know why he jumps, down to his removal of his shoes. The script plays carefully not to focus too much on why he did it, focusing on depression as an all out answer can be clichéd, his cliff top phone call is simple and powerful. Even Steven cannot explain himself: “I just have bad days”. As Amy summons the courage to de-box Steven’s possessions she discovers his last notebook, a story about a boy who cannot stand all the light surrounding him. The plot creates juxtaposition between the boy and Steven – asking the question are they the same person?Steven’s ghostly presence acts out the story as Amy reads, his own voice blending with hers at certain points, making it clear that it is significant. The beautiful scene at the end of Amy throwing the pages off the cliff is theatrical and poignant, freeing her emotions and Steven’s soul.
Handling such a sensitive subject is difficult; especially one that has been in and out of the news in recent years. In response the research ploughed into Beachy Head by Analogue is clearly evident, even in the smallest of details. The production artfully weaves around the emotions and facts brought about by suicide, analysing them with great sensitivity and care and with the utmost creativity. I almost don’t want to pick, but there is a piece at the end where Steven’s jump is re-enacted as Amy watches the 8 second clip, whilst very emotive and artfully done it feels a little strange, as if the act itself is out of place amongst the emotion and cold hard facts. The audience and Amy have only just begun to recognise the multiple reasons to why he could have done it and understand it cannot truly be explained, I am still unsure how I felt about it.
Analogue are touring Beachy Head around the UK until the end of March.
