CIPHERS

'A young woman is found dead. Her sister sets out to find out what happened and stumbles into a world of secrets and subterfuge that makes her ask the question,'How well can you ever know someone who lies for a living?'
We saw this play while it was on at the Tobacco Factory in Bristol. It is an Out of Joint production directed by Blanche McIntyre-the company was founded originally by Max Stafford-Clark. It is on tour nationally and well worth seeing. The script by Dawn King is pacey and provocative with a bit of a surprise ending.  The performances are very good although doubling up roles doesn't always work. Characters don't look sufficiently different with an added scarf or coat. The staging creates tension-sliding panels give the feeling of not knowing quite what might be on the other side. The only downside of this is seeing the performers' shuffling feet!
 Contact 'Out of Joint' for touring schedule.

1984

1984, George Orwell's seminal work about State power, control, and persecution seems as fresh and relevant now as when it was published in 1949, when the world was fragmenting into huge power blocs- USSR,USA & Europe. This production of Headlong Theatre and Nottingham Playhouse adapted and directed by Robert Icke and Duncan Macmillan, seeks to revive Orwell's ideas that Big Brother is watching us and that the Thought Police know what is going on in our heads. 'It explores the world inside Winston Smith's head, and the world without, and catches the euphoria and bliss buried deep beneath the cold face of Big Brother.'

Playing to a packed audience at the Sherman Theatre, the play sets out to be very provocative and challenging. The torture scene on stage was especially gruesome. Winston tries to become a member of the Brotherhood, opposing Big Brother, but it is all a scam. Winston is tortured and eventually can take no more. He demands that the guards should torture his forbidden lover, anyone but him. 

The set design by Chloe Lamford was outstanding invoking a chilling and unpredictable atmosphere. The use of technology, projection and good lighting all helped create anxiety and fear.

The first half is somewhat slow and wordy, but it really picks up into a tense and powerful piece. Well worth watching. On at Sherman Theatre til the 9th of November 2013.

 BRAMBLY HEDGE

 

‘He placed the forefinger of his left hand under the ‘fly,’ and with the same finger of his right hand, he gave her a squeeze on the back of the chest.’* He peered through cracked spectacles at her beauty- the fine features of the ‘White Admirable’, (Limenitis Camilla) kaleidoscoped through shards of light. The species is sometimes called, ‘The Glider’ for the effortless way she moves in lightly shaded woodland.

        He’d been chasing her for some time, studying her from different angles. She was quite unaware of this of course, although they’d been a moment in late May when she almost caught a glimpse of him. The Bramble was blossoming, a wedding dress of cream and pink.  From the darker side of the hedge he admired her secretly, her whole body focused on the sensuous task of imbibing nectar. He’d had that funny feeling in his groin that reminded him of a childhood memory. Whilst out looking for butterflies in the woods, he’d come upon a couple embracing passionately. He’d hidden behind the Bramble hedge to watch; the man’s bottom, coal-grubby cupped in tight trousers; the women’s breasts tumbling out of her dress, like new-born Labradors.

    He turned her over on the bench, took the pin, one he’d made especially for the purpose in his lab, and ran it in one smooth incision from her neck, through her body.  Her chest parted, exposing a heart still beating and lungs pulsating. His breath grew shallower. He plunged his right hand inside her and pulled out her organs, slopping them into a kidney dish. Then he took a needle and threaded it with fishing line, and meticulously sewed her up, as if he was embroidering a cushion cover. He took out a luggage label, wrote down her name ‘Camilla,’ and tied it loosely round her ankle, placing her in a glass cabinet, next to the rest of his collection.

 

Janet Daniel

*Quotation from Wilkes, The Admirable Butterfly, 1742.

SOLD

'SOLD,' is a Theatre Versus Oppression production, created by Jennifer S.Hartley. |I saw it at Chapter Arts Centre on Saturday. 'It was written after a period of consultation and counselling of trafficking victims. It tells the story of 6 individuals who have suffered at the hands of traffickers. . . their stories collide at a bus stop in Bute Town, Cardiff.' The subject matter is particularly relevant with the recent discovery of  enslaved people found on a farm outside Newport, working as forced labour.
    You would expect to be moved  by these stories of human misery but overall I wasn't emotionally involved. The problem with the play for me is that there no deep communication and engagement between the individual characters. It is a collection of stories rather than a study of relationships. There is no dialectic to provide tension and different views other than these victims.  Although there were some good performances I'm not sure that the faux Eastern European accents worked well.  The only hope for change was the baby born to an abandoned trafficked victim. The audience was left with the characters' despair and no hints of how change might or could happen. Given that TvO is a charity, 'dedicated to using Applied Theatre to bring about positive change and development,' I left Chapter feeling un-empowered to do something positive,  just thinking, 'Isn't it terrible?'  I think this play would work much better as a starting point for work-shopping and as a piece of theatre in education.
The play is touring Wales til the 9th of November 2013. For further info www.theatreversusoppression.co.uk

CHIMERICA

Last week in London, I saw a 'not-to-be missed' moving play, called Chimerica by Lucy Kirwood and directed by Lyndsey Turner.  The starting point is the photograph by Jeff Widener of the unnamed hero who stood in front of the tanks at Tiananmen Square in Beijing to stop further killing of students protesting against the regime. The play questions how meaning in imagery can be skewed or used according to an individual or organisation's own agenda, and the complexity of heroism. Set in Beijing and New York, in a rotating set that gives pace to the piece, a photo- journalist sets out to find 'Tank Man'. He eventually does find his hero but in his search, he falls in love, and finds that there is another Tank Man, ignored by the Western press.
   Chimerica is on at The Harold Pinter Theatre;  Headlong& Almeida Theatre co-production. www.atgtickets.com

WRITING INTHE MUSEUM & BEES AT CHAPTER

Summer's over.  It's been a wonderful enriching time for which I'm really grateful. I didn't plan to do so much air travel, but both our children have moved abroad and alternatives were so expensive and unfeasable. In the past few months we've been lucky enough to visit Portugal, Switzerland and Singapore.
       Now it's autumn, the 'season' has started. I've enrolled on a new writing course-'Writing at the Museum,' using artefacts from the National Museum of Wales. This term's theme is the use of colour in bugs and butterflies. Science meets art. It's made me think about the nature of collecting. Seeing rows of royal blue tropical butterflies in glass cases, pinned with fading labels; caught, killed, classified and named after Victorian Lepidopterists or Taxonomists. Now these species are probably very rare. Their enthusiasm to share species from exotic lands with the British public could never have foreseen that their activity contributed in some small way to the extinction of the species. Now, the rapid destruction of rainforest by man for commerce and profit, climate change, changes in farming practice, etc, etc, have fast-forwarded the extinction of such beautiful creatures.
      Sue Richardson, Eco-Poet is organising an evening of poetry devoted to Bees- some species are dying breeds. Proceeds will go to Friends of the Earth. The evening starting at 7pm is on Friday 25th October at Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff. All welcome.

SINGAPORE WILDERNESS

I stood over her, curious. She was large and yellow, crouched in a corner behind the swimming pool; the first ‘wild’ creature I’d seen in the city since arriving.

      Later, I sat on the lit balcony of the 11^th floor apartment my daughter and her partner are renting. The air was humid after monsoon rain. I scanned the landscape-a mixture of Gotham City and a Cubist painting -mountains of high-rise flats and futuristic office blocks.    Something was missing and it wasn’t Batman.

       I listened and looked up at the balcony light. No flying cockroaches, no whining mosquitos, no killer bees or Kamikazi moths. This was tropical Asia. I didn’t get it. Yet the part of me that didn’t want to be bitten or stung, rather liked this new experience-for a while.

     ‘They spray everything here,’ my daughter told me as we sipped our G & T.  ‘They’re afraid of Denge fever.  Last week, they injected clouds with chemicals so it would rain before the Grand Prix-they can’t afford to chance it during the event- it would be a financial disaster.’  

      ‘How do you cope with it?’ I asked. ‘It’s challenging,’ she said. ‘But, there’s a new development, ‘Gardens in the Bay,’ we haven’t seen ourselves. Do you fancy it?’

       We took the boat down the cleaned-up Singapore River, past the statue of Raffles, the First Governor of the Island, a wild-life enthusiast.  A plant that only flowers once a year, the ‘Rafflesia’ was named after him. On we floated towards the modern development of Marina Bay, with its metallic arts complex and Eden-type project with cool houses.  Against the backdrop of the financial quarter stand ‘Super trees’- huge metal constructions towering over the gardens. Climbing plants threaded into the artificial ‘trunks.’ While in close-by Indonesian Kalimantan, I thought, deforestation marches on, raping the rainforest.

       ‘Where does interfering with nature stop?’ I asked. ‘Man-made rain, man-made trees, gassed insects. When will they start making artificial insects, beetles and bees that will replace the natural species they are so keen to destroy?’

      ‘Perhaps ‘they’ already have,’ my daughter said.

       Back at the apartment block, I looked again at the large yellow Cricket by the pool.

      ‘How did you survive?’ I asked her.  There was a deafening sound. ‘They’ were testing the sirens in case of a nuclear war.  But she stayed perfectly still and kept her escape plans to herself.

 

 

BUOY A play by Emily Hinshelwood

Last night we went back to our favourite venue Pontardawe Arts Centre to see Emily Hinshelwood's new play, entitled, 'Buoy.' Emily won the Arts Centre's Scriptslam competition with a ten minute extract from this play. As a result she had the opportunity to work with Dramaturge,Writer and Director, Louise Osborn, and Director Derek Cobley, to develop her work into a full length play.
     Through a love story the play explores the tensions, expectations, myths and challenges of protecting our environment at a time of economic and personal crises.
     Suzy and Ioan meet unexpectedly by a canal. Suzy's husband has sold her travel agency, because it's not making any money. She runs away to the woods to escape her anger and their marriage. Ioan's wife died in childbirth. He is living on a houseboat, running away from his grief and from a baby son, who he can't look after on his own.
      Ioan has become attached to a buoy that he found in the canal. It reminded me a little of  Wilson, the football that Shipwrecked Tom Hanks rescued and views as a confident and friend in the film, 'Castaway.'  Suzy and Ioan hold the buoy giving it their own meanings-from a globe to his son.
      Ioan is no eco-warrior. He walks to Tesco, three miles away to steal food that's past its sell-by date and dumped in bins. Suzy remembers being taught to hunt and fish by her grandfather. They feast on pigeon and rabbit, that she traps and kills. Gradually, as they fall in love, their roles change. Ioan wants to return to the industrial world, where he works for Ford and pick up his old life. Suzy becomes pregnant but she doesn't want to bring a child into that world. He tries to persuade her differently and to come home with him. Suzy moves into the canal boat as Ioan leaves without her. We're left wondering how they'll both survive.
     It's an interesting piece, with great stage effects designed by Daniel Travers. Emily also composed and played the flute and filmed some of the first scenes projected onto a back cloth. My only gripe lies with Suzy arriving at the canal wearing high heels without a speck of dirt or mud having supposedly walked a few miles through the forest. A minor point in a very thought provoking piece.

GOING WILD AT THE HAY FESTIVAL

Yesterday we went to the Hay-On-Wye Literature Festival to hear Robert MacFarlane and George Monbiot speak about their new books.
     Robert Macfarlane writes about his experience of journeying out across the land,mountains, rivers,and sea. His books include 'Mountains of the Mind','Wild Places', 'Old Ways' and his latest book is 'Holloway'-not the prison, but old paths beaten and trodden down by carts, horses, and boots over time. They are embraced by overhanging trees forming a natural tunnel with a tiny light at the end. He said he's only recently realized that his books chart his descent. His next one will be subterranean, about his experience journeying beneath the earth.
       I'm a huge fan of his writing. He writes poetically about his visceral experience of nature, spending nights alone on the top of wind-crushed mountains, long walks across Rannoch Moor or a Suffolk beach guided by sticks that disappear as the tide turns. He makes you feel as if you're his travel companion. While reading his adventures I experience them vacariously and that's exciting, thought provoking, and moving. He says he comes from a rational tradition, where truth must be verifiable. He's not setting out to have a spiritual experience, but his writing for me evokes the search for a deeper understanding of himself and the meaning of life through his relationship with nature. He inspired us to visit wild Sutherland and Cape Wrath, although we didn't follow in his exact footsteps, that would have been too much of a physical challenge, but it got us to places we might not otherwise have visited. I was chuffed that he wrote on our signed copy of 'Holloway', 'Keep Adventuring!' He also introduced me to the work of writer and environmentalist Roger Deakin, who, whilst on their stomachs, looking down a crack in a West Ireland limestone 'pavement', helped Robert redefine the meaning of 'wild' and has made me look at the landscape in a different way.
     'Rewilding' was the theme of George Monbiot's talk:'Feral: Rewilding The Land,The Sea and Human Life.' George Monbiot is a well known environmental campaigner and writes a column in the Guardian newspaper. He has a poetic hopeful vision, with a positive view of conservation, focusing on what you can do or what might be possible by thinking and acting differently. He sees the current system of conservation as narrow, random and negative. He set out his argument, based on the experience of Yellowstone National Park as to why he believes we should be focusing on a top down rather than bottom-up approach to improving the wider eco system. This should be done by reintroducing larger keystone species, such as wolves, lynx, even elephants, that would have a trophic cascade impact on smaller species, meaning there would be an increase of species at all levels. His dream is to create a European Serengeti. He said that positive environmentalism should focus on the rewilding of upland areas,where farmers are paid to keep their land bare.  All this has to start with the self and our estrangement from the natural world.  We have to face our fears and rewild ourselves.

OBRIGADA PORTUGAL

I haven't blogged for a few weeks because I've been lucky enough to spend three weeks travelling round Portugal. The last time we visited was 23+ years ago, to the Algarve with our children. Like most of our holidays then, it was on a budget, staying in rooms in people's homes, secreting in food and eating tinned sardine baguettes on our beds. In one pretty fishing village, Salema, we stayed in a small shell-covered house and lack of space meant that our son, aged about 5, slept on coats on the floor. During the day I sat in a beach bar, reading and drinking beer, recovering from working for Mencap, while Rhys played with the kids and a large stick insect they found on the beach. My son wrote a diary about the lack of fig rolls and mint sauce.
      In researching this trip I referred to the same Rough Guide I used back then. I planned a trip starting in Porto and travelling on the little trains that run through the Minho and the stunning scenery of the Douro Valley, well known for its fine Vinho Verdes and Port wines. Well, they did back then. It was only on the Metro from the airport that I learnt from another Brit, that those lines had closed years ago. Beeching like cuts. But he assured me buses went to nearly everywhere.  And they do. Our trip started and ended at Porto in the north and included Braga, Guimaraes, Mondim do Basto, Coimbra, Lisbon, Sintra and Ericeira.
     Travelling now with just my husband in what the company Booking.Com describe as 'a mature couple' my budget mentality hasn't changed although my resources have. In the old days we'd just pitch up and find rooms. Now with the internet it's easy to book your whole itinery and get some great deals. It also takes the anxiety out of will we/ won't we? find somewhere half decent. However, it would seem that the old habits are still ingrained and I found it very difficult not to choose the cheapest hotel or rooms,even on one occasion when reviews told me the place was dangerous, dirty and has an owner with an attitude problem. After enjoying the comfort of some really nice places and dreaming about being murdered in the communal showers, I relented and cancelled that one.
     Portugal has to be the most relaxed country I've ever visited as a tourist. The people are so helpful and friendly, all  the young people speak English and are happy to answer questions about their situation. More friendly in the north than in the capital, but isn't that often the case here too?  30% of young people are unemployed and there were demonstrations about the austerity cuts. We met graduates of different ages working in cafes and restaurants who were finding it tough but pleased to be working. Undoubtedly times are really hard for most Portuguese. But the transport system is efficient, quick,cheap and clean. (Have you visited Victoria Coach Station lately?) They have invested substantially over the past decade in their infrastructure and are keen on renewables. It's a country full of geographical variety, a history where exploration and adventure is promoted, lots of culture,exhibitions,music festivals, much sponsored by the Gulbenkian Foundation, and where the cost of living for tourists is cheaper than elsewhere in Europe. We drank 'jarros' of excellent wine at 3 Euros a litre. The weather was good and May is a great time to avoid crowds. And the hotels we stayed in? Very comfortable and safe. Obrigada Portugal for a great holiday.