Just got back from an intensive weekend of comedy, theatre and music. This was my second trip and again I wished I'd discovered the festival years ago. It's so much fun! We saw a variety of shows over three days. The breadth of talent is formidable, the city buzzes and friendly people share tips for top shows wherever there's a queue, even for the loo.
Ruby Wax in a two women show, 'Losing It' was very funny but also very moving, telling her life story that included a nervous breakdown and periods in and out of The Priory. Ruby is as sharp and quick witted as ever, but also unexpectedly a very visual comedian. It was clear from the question and answer session at the end that there were audience members who related to her through their own experiences of mental illness. She's touring the show to NHS venues and will also be at the Duchess Theatre in London this week.
Another woman artist, Irish Camille O Sullivan, gave a superb performance. Above the stage hung vintage dresses over light bulbs and the piano and drums were decorated with fairy lights. Her performance began as a wacky wicked witch, but as she disrobed she morphed into a wonderfully sexy young woman with a honeycomb voice and melting songs by Nick Cave and Jacques Brel.
Fascinating Aida was another sell out and deservedly so. Three women, one in her sixties, one in her fifties and one in her twenties sang the mick out of politicians, pomposity and cheap airline tickets. Oh, and there was also a song about dogging and some well chosen four letter words. Very entertaining!
Late night Comedy Reserve comedians had to curb some of their choicest language and innuendo, as they were faced with a chatty ten year old child in the front row. What kind of parent deliberately exposes a child to explicit stories and jokes about adult sexual practices? According to the compere, 'cool ones'. I'm not so sure. Although the child seemed more bothered by a possible racist comment. With a propensity to answer the comedians' rhetorical questions in a loud attention-seeking way, he became part of the entertainment, but not the show we'd paid our money for.
On the more serious side, Oedipus, directed and adapted by Stephen Berkoff (after Sophocles) was interesting. Unfortunately, Berkoff, the actor was indisposed and so we missed his rendering of King Oedipus. The play is set in ancient Greece at a time of plague and turmoil. However, even this dramatic and moving play about a son brought up by surrogate parents, who unwittingly kills his birth father and marries his birth mother, had its funny moments. Mainly in the character of Oedipus's wife/mother played by Anita Dobson (Angie, the landlady of the Old Vic in Eastenders). She looked more like Oedipus's grandmother, but that would have been fine if she'd done more than move around the stage like an wimp geriatric ghost.
Splendid Isolation, is a play by Nick Ward set in an outpost of the colonies in the late eighteenth century and tells a tale of pearl and slave trading, addiction and madness. The token slave character, played by a beautiful black woman, was also directed as a ghost in the cream-coloured clothes of her ex-master. The opportunity to develop her character outside of the stereotype exotic black woman was disappointingly missed.
The Girl with an Iron Claw was a beautiful fairy story performed by four gifted actors and their puppets to an entranced adult audience. Pity there were no kids. There was a ten year old at the festival who might have enjoyed it.
Finally, the show I'd asked all my friends to come and see and which played to another packed crowd, was performed by The Dog-Eared Collective. My friend's daughter Joanna Hutt and three pals from Uni make up the group. Their material is surreal and anarchic. Among several very funny sketches, the Snooker sketch, Party Planning for Wakes and the St John's Ambulance sketch stood out. Oh, and the super small hero trying to bring justice and wage war on behalf of people vertically challenged. And then there was the audience participation...
Monday, 29 August 2011
Wednesday, 20 July 2011
WRITER'S BLOCK
Last night was the third Tuesday of the month and the last Pontardawe Script Cafe of the year. It was an open mike session and eight scripts were read out and mulled over. I wanted to break out of my normal style and try something different. Since chairing Script Cafe this year, I haven't done much writing myself. I've sent off my two full length plays to various theatres and am awaiting the usual rejection letters. I've written a few poems for our exhibition about climate change in October but it doesn't feel like a great output and I haven't felt inspired.
I've heard writer's block described as a lack of ideas or anxiety about writing crap- it's all crap so why bother writing anything? It is hard to keep motivated when you aren't getting anything published. For me it's been a bit of both and also because of other priorities, I've lacked a regular routine. When there is so much else to do in life and writing is hard work, it is easy to let writing drift, and that's what's happened. So last night it was fun to see my play,' Emergency Ward 301' given an energetic reading/performance by three of our members.
The play is set on a hospital ward. Two patients, Dave and Nick are in bed discussing their operations, while the Surgeon, Andy, performs his chaotic surgery on them. It all becomes too much, they turn and start performing brain surgery on him with a chain saw.
Comments included,'Daliesque', 'Goonish', ' Reminiscent of Monty Python.'
Celia Thomas in an email wrote,
' A clever use of metaphor which sadly we didn't pick up on- the main characters meant to represent David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Andrew- an admirable attempt to show the state of the NHS today. Derek thought it could be staged using a white sheet. Thought provoking. I thought Fawlty Towers takes over the national health- very gruesone but fun too. Well done!'
I've heard writer's block described as a lack of ideas or anxiety about writing crap- it's all crap so why bother writing anything? It is hard to keep motivated when you aren't getting anything published. For me it's been a bit of both and also because of other priorities, I've lacked a regular routine. When there is so much else to do in life and writing is hard work, it is easy to let writing drift, and that's what's happened. So last night it was fun to see my play,' Emergency Ward 301' given an energetic reading/performance by three of our members.
The play is set on a hospital ward. Two patients, Dave and Nick are in bed discussing their operations, while the Surgeon, Andy, performs his chaotic surgery on them. It all becomes too much, they turn and start performing brain surgery on him with a chain saw.
Comments included,'Daliesque', 'Goonish', ' Reminiscent of Monty Python.'
Celia Thomas in an email wrote,
' A clever use of metaphor which sadly we didn't pick up on- the main characters meant to represent David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Andrew- an admirable attempt to show the state of the NHS today. Derek thought it could be staged using a white sheet. Thought provoking. I thought Fawlty Towers takes over the national health- very gruesone but fun too. Well done!'
NO.26 BUS TO PARAQUAY
When Richard Durrant was eight, he would take the Number 26 bus from his council estate in Brighton to his weekly guitar lessons. His guitar took him to Paraguay, at first in his dreams but eventually in reality. His hero is Agustin Barrios, a virtuoso guitarist known for his tremolo.
Richard Durrant opened the Welsh Proms at St David's Hall on Friday with pieces by Barrios and stories about his own career told in an entertaining cockney style. After Richard had performed a very successful concert of Barrios's work in a concert hall in Paraquay, he came out on the street to see a Number 26 bus pulled up at the bus stop.
Richard Durrant opened the Welsh Proms at St David's Hall on Friday with pieces by Barrios and stories about his own career told in an entertaining cockney style. After Richard had performed a very successful concert of Barrios's work in a concert hall in Paraquay, he came out on the street to see a Number 26 bus pulled up at the bus stop.
Monday, 20 June 2011
SUSURRUS
I don't know if susurrus (pronounced sus-yoo-rus) is a made-up word but according to the playwright, David Leddy it means,'the wind rustling in the trees.' It is also the title of his latest production to be premiered at Margam Country Park from the 25th June to the 3rd of July.
He is our invited guest at Script cafe in Pontardawe Arts centre tomorrow, so I was keen to attend a preview yesterday in the Park. According to the information given out,
'It is part radio play, part recital, part lesson in bird dissection and part stroll in the park. . . the different elements creating a perfect melding of location and text to create a theatre experience in which there are no actors and only one member in the audience:you'
We were given headphones, a MP3 player and a map each, and set loose to follow the trail while listening to the 'play'. Margam Country Park was once a twelfth century Cistercian Abbey, the wealthiest and largest in Wales. It has been extended and added to and has the longest Orangery in Britain. It was a brilliantly sunny day, families were strolling around the lake and playing frisbee on the grass. A large party of Asian families were having a barbecue on one of the smaller open spaces, children swinging and climbing over ancient yew trees, and a couple of butch-looking women with huge lenses swung around their necks were taking photos of the ducks and close-ups of foliage patterns. A perfect back drop for a play about 'love and loss. . . a sensual interpretation of a Midsummer Night's Dream with a contemporary edge.'
I should have known when we were told by the guide that it had adult content that it wasn't going to be what I thought it might be. I wandered around the park imbibing the perfume and colour of the roses, pastoral scenes spread out in front of me like a delicious picnic, the steel works of Port Talbot in the far distance, and the sea sparkling on the horizon. I was enjoying the wonderful music and operatic recital pieces that accompanied me from bench to bench, when I suddenly realised that 'love and loss' in the audio drama included sexual abuse, a bereaved daughter, a suicidal father, a homosexual lover, and a post mortem on a dead sparrow. Not the love and loss I was expecting, but a very moving and sad story juxtaposed against a sunny Sunday afternoon.
I would certainly recommend the audio drama- it is a new intimate experience in theatre going, cleverly interweaving four viewpoints, layered with meaning. But if you can't stomach the story, you could just listen to the momentous musical bits in between the action as you stroll around the magical Margam Country Park.
He is our invited guest at Script cafe in Pontardawe Arts centre tomorrow, so I was keen to attend a preview yesterday in the Park. According to the information given out,
'It is part radio play, part recital, part lesson in bird dissection and part stroll in the park. . . the different elements creating a perfect melding of location and text to create a theatre experience in which there are no actors and only one member in the audience:you'
We were given headphones, a MP3 player and a map each, and set loose to follow the trail while listening to the 'play'. Margam Country Park was once a twelfth century Cistercian Abbey, the wealthiest and largest in Wales. It has been extended and added to and has the longest Orangery in Britain. It was a brilliantly sunny day, families were strolling around the lake and playing frisbee on the grass. A large party of Asian families were having a barbecue on one of the smaller open spaces, children swinging and climbing over ancient yew trees, and a couple of butch-looking women with huge lenses swung around their necks were taking photos of the ducks and close-ups of foliage patterns. A perfect back drop for a play about 'love and loss. . . a sensual interpretation of a Midsummer Night's Dream with a contemporary edge.'
I should have known when we were told by the guide that it had adult content that it wasn't going to be what I thought it might be. I wandered around the park imbibing the perfume and colour of the roses, pastoral scenes spread out in front of me like a delicious picnic, the steel works of Port Talbot in the far distance, and the sea sparkling on the horizon. I was enjoying the wonderful music and operatic recital pieces that accompanied me from bench to bench, when I suddenly realised that 'love and loss' in the audio drama included sexual abuse, a bereaved daughter, a suicidal father, a homosexual lover, and a post mortem on a dead sparrow. Not the love and loss I was expecting, but a very moving and sad story juxtaposed against a sunny Sunday afternoon.
I would certainly recommend the audio drama- it is a new intimate experience in theatre going, cleverly interweaving four viewpoints, layered with meaning. But if you can't stomach the story, you could just listen to the momentous musical bits in between the action as you stroll around the magical Margam Country Park.
Sunday, 12 June 2011
LET ENVIRONMENTAL CONSTELLATIONS CHANGE YOUR WORLD
Earlier this month I attended another workshop at Llwynbwch, entitled,'Environmental Constellations' run by Zita Cox. It is an idea based on the work of Bert Hellinger.
'We are all interconnected parts of family, organisation, community and eco-system. The difficulties we struggle with are often best resolved when we work systemically.They allow us to observe our place in nature and our systemic relationship to other living beings. They assist us with new ways of thinking and finding resolutions to the problems we have created, such as climate change, pollution, alienation and accelerating species extinction etc; They can be an aid to empathy and shared understanding in all situations. A constellation draws on emotional intelligence and intuition as well as logical thought. It can provide a way of seeing below the surface to understand what the real issues are and what can be done to improve things.'*
This workshop was aimed at therapists who want to find a different way to explore some of the issues raised in their work with clients and to develop their own self awareness. We were asked to identify a deeply felt, ‘burning’ issue.
In my case, I decided to constellate my next life step. Zita asked me to invite people from the group to stand in a special configuration – called a constellation. This provides a ‘living map’ of the issues you are dealing with. With guidance from Zita, the representatives in my constellation were asked to feed back their experience – focusing on their physical and emotional responses. Zita tested possibilities by inviting representatives to move positions and make simple statements. Pathways to action were revealed and explored. When an optimum configuration was arrived at, I was invited to step back into the constellation to experience the resolution.
The experience was very interesting. As only one person knew me I think it would have been difficult for all representatives to have been in collusion with one another projecting their ideas of me onto the constellation. However, I can see that a cynic could think this. What seemed to come out of this exercise for me was a shift in what could be my next life step. Whatever it is, it seems it should involve crossing water and preferably the sea. The last time I had really itchy feet was around seven years ago. I ended up living and working in the Shetland isles for a year and wrote a book, 'Soothmoother's Saga,' about the experience. Where and what it might be this time has yet to be revealed to me, but you'll be one of the first to know when it is.
*For further info see: www.environmentalcontellations.com
Monday, 23 May 2011
THE FERRET WHO CAN'T SWIM
I've just got back from a week's holiday with my daughter staying in a very nice hotel near the seaside resort of Kalkan in Southern Turkey. I was last in Turkey twenty-one years ago when our daughter was nine and our son, five. Then, it was our son who got all the attention. The Turkish men made a great fuss of him and he lapped it up like a Cheshire cat. Our daughter had felt quite left out. This time it was her turn for attention but it was mainly unwanted and at times persistent and sleazy.
One of her 'suitors' was the pool supervisor, whose Turkish name sounded like Ferret and that's what he asked us to call him. He was friendly with both of us, but when she was resistent to his charms, he became hurt, angry and sulked.
Ferret is from eastern Turkey near the Syrian border. There was no work in his village and so this was his eighth summer working for the hotel doing the same job. Despite his job title he can't swim and hates the sea. When we asked him what would happen if someone got into trouble in the pool, he said he'd call the captain of the little water taxi that takes folk around the bay. And if he was out at sea? Nothing had ever happened and he didn't think it ever would.
It didn't matter where ever we might be: sitting by the grand or round salt water pools, sunbathing down on one of the bouganvillea-covered terraces, swimming in crystal waters, or at the precise moment when one of us was trying to unobtrusively extricate ourselves from a wet costume, he would pop up like a meerkat, comparing the market for holiday insurance.
Most of his days are spent practising proverbs with British holiday-makers, avoiding animals he may be allergic to, or snoozing in the wooden box that stores orange beach towels, dreaming of Welsh girls he would like to go out with. Where there's a will, there's not always a way.
One of her 'suitors' was the pool supervisor, whose Turkish name sounded like Ferret and that's what he asked us to call him. He was friendly with both of us, but when she was resistent to his charms, he became hurt, angry and sulked.
Ferret is from eastern Turkey near the Syrian border. There was no work in his village and so this was his eighth summer working for the hotel doing the same job. Despite his job title he can't swim and hates the sea. When we asked him what would happen if someone got into trouble in the pool, he said he'd call the captain of the little water taxi that takes folk around the bay. And if he was out at sea? Nothing had ever happened and he didn't think it ever would.
It didn't matter where ever we might be: sitting by the grand or round salt water pools, sunbathing down on one of the bouganvillea-covered terraces, swimming in crystal waters, or at the precise moment when one of us was trying to unobtrusively extricate ourselves from a wet costume, he would pop up like a meerkat, comparing the market for holiday insurance.
Most of his days are spent practising proverbs with British holiday-makers, avoiding animals he may be allergic to, or snoozing in the wooden box that stores orange beach towels, dreaming of Welsh girls he would like to go out with. Where there's a will, there's not always a way.
Monday, 9 May 2011
'THINK LIKE A MOUNTAIN'
This weekend we celebrated the festival of Beltane, the time of the year when the sap of the Earth is rising, bursting with fertility, the Moon is waxing and growth and expansion are in the air. We celebrated at 'Llwynbwch,' in a two day workshop facilitated by Sue Weaver, Rosemary Bell and Alan Bellamy.
This was the last in a series of workshops that I have been attending over the past few years, held at key times in the Celtic calendar, including the equinox, solsitices, Imbolc and now Beltane. The workshops are 'work that reconnects' and are in the Deep Ecology tradition of Joanna Macy.
This weekend the blurb stated,
"We will draw on the energies of this time: of Fire and Earth, of the interweaving of masculine and feminine within and between us, of the natural growth of tree, flowers and grasses, the singing of birds and insects in celebration here on the land at Llwynbwch, asking how to manifest our own dreams and visions within our lives and communities, seeking to empower ourselves for fruitful."
The format of the work is based on a spiral. It started with a ritual cleansing with sage, giving gratitude for all the wonders of the natural world. We drew on magical moments from our childhood and life that had inspired and empowered us. In a truth mandela, we honoured the pain, sadness, anger, grief and emptiness we felt at the human destruction of Gaia- Mother Earth. We went out onto the land trying to see the world with new eyes and asking ourselves the questions,'What am I longing for?' 'What am I capable of?'
After a celebratory meal we gathered around a fire talking about our hopes and aspirations. At the end of the night we jumped the Beltane fire. Well, those of us who weren't wimps and could jump did. I opened my legs and skirted round it with legs like a cowboy who'd been on his horse too long.
The next morning we discussed our dreams from the night before. These workshops often produce rich material that relates to our journeys in re-connecting with the natural world. We identified our strengths and qualities, and the weapons of the Shambala Warriors of compassion and insight which would help us make the next step. Again, out onto the land on an adventure quest facing our demons that could stop us having a life sustaining future.
The weekend was powerful and intense. These workshops have helped me look at the world in a different way, taking a more expansive view of the inter-connectness of all sentient beings and our relationship to all parts of our universe. I am sad they've come to an end. I wish Sue and Alan all the very best in their next step moving to the Isle of Arran. I shall miss them, Llwynbwch and their work, but everything has a time and there is a time for everything. I don't know what my next step will be yet, but here is a Haiku I wrote in response to the weekend:
Her scorched hand screams
Gaia holds on like cling film
Wade in her waters
This was the last in a series of workshops that I have been attending over the past few years, held at key times in the Celtic calendar, including the equinox, solsitices, Imbolc and now Beltane. The workshops are 'work that reconnects' and are in the Deep Ecology tradition of Joanna Macy.
This weekend the blurb stated,
"We will draw on the energies of this time: of Fire and Earth, of the interweaving of masculine and feminine within and between us, of the natural growth of tree, flowers and grasses, the singing of birds and insects in celebration here on the land at Llwynbwch, asking how to manifest our own dreams and visions within our lives and communities, seeking to empower ourselves for fruitful."
The format of the work is based on a spiral. It started with a ritual cleansing with sage, giving gratitude for all the wonders of the natural world. We drew on magical moments from our childhood and life that had inspired and empowered us. In a truth mandela, we honoured the pain, sadness, anger, grief and emptiness we felt at the human destruction of Gaia- Mother Earth. We went out onto the land trying to see the world with new eyes and asking ourselves the questions,'What am I longing for?' 'What am I capable of?'
After a celebratory meal we gathered around a fire talking about our hopes and aspirations. At the end of the night we jumped the Beltane fire. Well, those of us who weren't wimps and could jump did. I opened my legs and skirted round it with legs like a cowboy who'd been on his horse too long.
The next morning we discussed our dreams from the night before. These workshops often produce rich material that relates to our journeys in re-connecting with the natural world. We identified our strengths and qualities, and the weapons of the Shambala Warriors of compassion and insight which would help us make the next step. Again, out onto the land on an adventure quest facing our demons that could stop us having a life sustaining future.
The weekend was powerful and intense. These workshops have helped me look at the world in a different way, taking a more expansive view of the inter-connectness of all sentient beings and our relationship to all parts of our universe. I am sad they've come to an end. I wish Sue and Alan all the very best in their next step moving to the Isle of Arran. I shall miss them, Llwynbwch and their work, but everything has a time and there is a time for everything. I don't know what my next step will be yet, but here is a Haiku I wrote in response to the weekend:
Her scorched hand screams
Gaia holds on like cling film
Wade in her waters
Friday, 22 April 2011
'I'M NOT REALLY YOUR DAD'
Our guest speaker this month at Pontardawe Script Cafe was Louise Osborn, writer and director of stage, TV and film drama. In work-shopping Rose Wattley's play,'Identity', she focused on how to use emotion dramatically without falling into melodrama. Rose's play is autobiographical, and focuses on the moment when at the age of 13 she is told by the man she has always regarded as her father, that she is adopted.
It is hard to imagine the extent of the shock and confusion that Rose felt that day in the allotment. It was March 1945 and the war was coming to an end. She was told that the person she had thought of as an aunt throughout her childhood was in fact her mother. It was never spoken about again but her relationship with her adoptive mother deteriorated. At the age of 16 she went to live with her birth mother but it didn't work out.
There is a current ITV series, 'Long Lost Families', introduced by Davina MacCall, that explores the experience and helps bring together families split by adoption. Last night the programme explored the story of twins, who were born out of wedlock and adopted separately as babies. One found out through the taunts of a childhood friend that her parents weren't her birth parents. Her aunt who lived a few doors down would bring her knitting each evening and watch TV with her and 'parents'. It turned out that the aunt was her mother and her parents were in fact her grandparents. She was told that she had a sister and in her sixties she tried to trace her. The other twin had no idea that she had a sister, let alone a twin, until she was approached by the researchers on the programme. They had been living for over half a century within three miles of each other.
In my work as a counsellor I have heard many moving stories about people's experience of adoption. One client was sent away to a convent in Ireland to have her baby and had to give up a son to a Catholic priest who arranged the adoption. She went on to get married and had two daughters, but she always hoped that one day she would be reunited with her son. When her daughters were in their twenties she set about looking for him. Since having a child himself he had also been searching for his mother. There was a gradual process of communication through the Catholic Adoption Society; letters, emails, telephone calls and at last after what seemed eternity, the first meeting. She described it like 'falling in love'. They couldn't wait to see each other again but the rest of the family weren't so ecstatic. The joy of their reunion was overshadowed by sadness and disappointment. The daughters were jealous of their half brother and refused to get involved. My client had a vivid tattoo painted on her back of castles and dragons that metaphorically charted her journey to find her son. At each session she would throw off her shirt and show me the new developments.
One of my clients was adopted and then at the age of twenty had a child herself that she had to give up for adoption. She was able to send her a birthday card and Christmas card every year but not see her until she was 16. That meeting was momentous for my client. But afterwards her child wasn't interested in pursuing a relationship with her. My client was left bereft.
It is always risky to put your play up for scrutiny at Script Cafe. Even more so when it's also your own real life story. Louise Osborn dealt with the issues in Rose's play with great sensitivity and at the same time gave us all plenty of guidance in how to use emotion authentically and dramatically in writing for the theatre.
It is hard to imagine the extent of the shock and confusion that Rose felt that day in the allotment. It was March 1945 and the war was coming to an end. She was told that the person she had thought of as an aunt throughout her childhood was in fact her mother. It was never spoken about again but her relationship with her adoptive mother deteriorated. At the age of 16 she went to live with her birth mother but it didn't work out.
There is a current ITV series, 'Long Lost Families', introduced by Davina MacCall, that explores the experience and helps bring together families split by adoption. Last night the programme explored the story of twins, who were born out of wedlock and adopted separately as babies. One found out through the taunts of a childhood friend that her parents weren't her birth parents. Her aunt who lived a few doors down would bring her knitting each evening and watch TV with her and 'parents'. It turned out that the aunt was her mother and her parents were in fact her grandparents. She was told that she had a sister and in her sixties she tried to trace her. The other twin had no idea that she had a sister, let alone a twin, until she was approached by the researchers on the programme. They had been living for over half a century within three miles of each other.
In my work as a counsellor I have heard many moving stories about people's experience of adoption. One client was sent away to a convent in Ireland to have her baby and had to give up a son to a Catholic priest who arranged the adoption. She went on to get married and had two daughters, but she always hoped that one day she would be reunited with her son. When her daughters were in their twenties she set about looking for him. Since having a child himself he had also been searching for his mother. There was a gradual process of communication through the Catholic Adoption Society; letters, emails, telephone calls and at last after what seemed eternity, the first meeting. She described it like 'falling in love'. They couldn't wait to see each other again but the rest of the family weren't so ecstatic. The joy of their reunion was overshadowed by sadness and disappointment. The daughters were jealous of their half brother and refused to get involved. My client had a vivid tattoo painted on her back of castles and dragons that metaphorically charted her journey to find her son. At each session she would throw off her shirt and show me the new developments.
One of my clients was adopted and then at the age of twenty had a child herself that she had to give up for adoption. She was able to send her a birthday card and Christmas card every year but not see her until she was 16. That meeting was momentous for my client. But afterwards her child wasn't interested in pursuing a relationship with her. My client was left bereft.
It is always risky to put your play up for scrutiny at Script Cafe. Even more so when it's also your own real life story. Louise Osborn dealt with the issues in Rose's play with great sensitivity and at the same time gave us all plenty of guidance in how to use emotion authentically and dramatically in writing for the theatre.
Monday, 18 April 2011
KNOT OF THE HEART
On Saturday afternoon a group of writers from the Arvon course I attended last November gathered in the foyer of the Almeida Theatre to see David Eldridge's play, 'Knot of the Heart.' David was our tutor. His play examines relationships within a dysfunctional middle class family-a family of addicts. The main character, Lucy, loses her job in the media for being caught taking drugs. Her life sinks as she becomes addicted to heroin. Her mother is an alcoholic. Her sister cuts herself. The play explores the co-dependent relationship between Lucy and her mother, who in her efforts to look after Lucy becomes her pimp. By the end of the play, Lucy's been off heroin for a year and managed to move far away from her mother to South Africa.
Interesting subject material and well written dialogue. Overall, our group gave the play the thumbs up and felt the trip to London was well worth it. However, I'm not sure if it was the acting or the direction, but there was little build up of tension, most of the action was played at the top of the anguish range, and Lucy's character lacked empathy so I found it quite hard to really stay engaged with her. At times the behaviour of the mother's character was not always convincing, but she was challenging and has stayed with me. She did also make me wonder if in the efforts to look after my children, the way I sometimes behave may be meeting my own needs and not always be in their long term good.
David has another new play, 'Stock Da'Wa', directed by Kathy Burke, on at the Hampstead Theatre until mid May.
Interesting subject material and well written dialogue. Overall, our group gave the play the thumbs up and felt the trip to London was well worth it. However, I'm not sure if it was the acting or the direction, but there was little build up of tension, most of the action was played at the top of the anguish range, and Lucy's character lacked empathy so I found it quite hard to really stay engaged with her. At times the behaviour of the mother's character was not always convincing, but she was challenging and has stayed with me. She did also make me wonder if in the efforts to look after my children, the way I sometimes behave may be meeting my own needs and not always be in their long term good.
David has another new play, 'Stock Da'Wa', directed by Kathy Burke, on at the Hampstead Theatre until mid May.
Friday, 15 April 2011
CIRCLE DANCING ON GRAVESTONES
I wasn't expecting to be dancing on the gravestone of the High Sheriff of Brecon(1774) and his Clerk when I signed up for Circle Dancing at Brecon Cathedral this week.
I'm a regular circle dancer at a local village hall in Cardiff. We are a group of mainly older women who are retired or semi-retired. Our members come from all walks of life. They include an ex surgeon, social worker, midwife, drama adviser, lab technician, administrator, and a Russian academic who was also an accomplished musician specialising in medieval music. Sadly, she got dementia and following the dances became increasingly difficult for her. Despite encouragement from the group she felt embarressed and anxious and finally left. Our oldest member was 89 this week and we celebrated with home baked muffins. Phyllis had been a P.E. teacher and until recently took a Keep Fit class for the over 50s. She may be deaf and aching with arthritis but she glides around our circle with the grace of a young woman.
We dance to folk music from Israel, Romania, Greece, Bulgaria, Turkey, and Ukraine. Our teacher has had a series of problems with her health. She often forgets the steps herself so is very forgiving when we do too. She calls it 'variations on a dance from another village'. Last week, during a rowdy Greek song with scarves she stamped hard on her own foot. We fell about laughing. Poor teacher! We waltz, skip, jump, limp, yelp, whoop, and clap ourselves. It's the one time in the week when you are guaranteed a good laugh.
Circle Dancing in Brecon Cathedral was a very different experience. I went with a friend I'd first met in Indonesia, forty three years ago. She suffers from a nasty chronic cough and was anxious that she wouldn't be able to dance for very long without it getting the better of her. We were there celebrating the end of winter and the joy of this glorious spring and early summer. The leader was a green goddess dressed in shades of jade chiffon and sparkly black shoes. In front of the altar our large circle of women and men gathered to dance to the music of Kopanitsa, a two person band, playing guitar, clarinet and accordion. In the middle of our circle was a church candle swathed in an embroidered cloth. People were invited to place items of personal importance on the cloth. I spied a teddy bear, some crystals, a drawing of Swirling Derbishers, a sprig of ivy and a decorated jar of something that looked like blackcurrant jam.
At the start the Dean read out some biblical references to the joy of the dance and the evening began. I was standing next to the Dean, a tall willowy man. He squeezed my hand while we listened to instructions from the green goddess. I didn't like it. I mean I'm married. Couldn't he see my ring? In the interval my friend who'd been holding his other hand asked me if I'd noticed the Dean's nervous finger spasms.
We danced slowly and reverently over the tombstones of local heroes with names like Lancelot and Prydderch. When a dance came to the end we stood very still, holding on to each other's sweating spasming hands, and following the clarinet's last notes circling high up into the rafts of the Cathedral. The saints in the stained glass windows smiled angelically down on us. There was no laughing, whooping or yelping. Even my friend's cough had been silenced. This was a sacred experience - a pagan celebration in the house of Christ at Easter time. Two hundred years ago you'd probably have been hung by the High Sheriff for taking part in such a blasphemy. I smiled to my pagan self and returned the Dean's squeeze.
I'm a regular circle dancer at a local village hall in Cardiff. We are a group of mainly older women who are retired or semi-retired. Our members come from all walks of life. They include an ex surgeon, social worker, midwife, drama adviser, lab technician, administrator, and a Russian academic who was also an accomplished musician specialising in medieval music. Sadly, she got dementia and following the dances became increasingly difficult for her. Despite encouragement from the group she felt embarressed and anxious and finally left. Our oldest member was 89 this week and we celebrated with home baked muffins. Phyllis had been a P.E. teacher and until recently took a Keep Fit class for the over 50s. She may be deaf and aching with arthritis but she glides around our circle with the grace of a young woman.
We dance to folk music from Israel, Romania, Greece, Bulgaria, Turkey, and Ukraine. Our teacher has had a series of problems with her health. She often forgets the steps herself so is very forgiving when we do too. She calls it 'variations on a dance from another village'. Last week, during a rowdy Greek song with scarves she stamped hard on her own foot. We fell about laughing. Poor teacher! We waltz, skip, jump, limp, yelp, whoop, and clap ourselves. It's the one time in the week when you are guaranteed a good laugh.
Circle Dancing in Brecon Cathedral was a very different experience. I went with a friend I'd first met in Indonesia, forty three years ago. She suffers from a nasty chronic cough and was anxious that she wouldn't be able to dance for very long without it getting the better of her. We were there celebrating the end of winter and the joy of this glorious spring and early summer. The leader was a green goddess dressed in shades of jade chiffon and sparkly black shoes. In front of the altar our large circle of women and men gathered to dance to the music of Kopanitsa, a two person band, playing guitar, clarinet and accordion. In the middle of our circle was a church candle swathed in an embroidered cloth. People were invited to place items of personal importance on the cloth. I spied a teddy bear, some crystals, a drawing of Swirling Derbishers, a sprig of ivy and a decorated jar of something that looked like blackcurrant jam.
At the start the Dean read out some biblical references to the joy of the dance and the evening began. I was standing next to the Dean, a tall willowy man. He squeezed my hand while we listened to instructions from the green goddess. I didn't like it. I mean I'm married. Couldn't he see my ring? In the interval my friend who'd been holding his other hand asked me if I'd noticed the Dean's nervous finger spasms.
We danced slowly and reverently over the tombstones of local heroes with names like Lancelot and Prydderch. When a dance came to the end we stood very still, holding on to each other's sweating spasming hands, and following the clarinet's last notes circling high up into the rafts of the Cathedral. The saints in the stained glass windows smiled angelically down on us. There was no laughing, whooping or yelping. Even my friend's cough had been silenced. This was a sacred experience - a pagan celebration in the house of Christ at Easter time. Two hundred years ago you'd probably have been hung by the High Sheriff for taking part in such a blasphemy. I smiled to my pagan self and returned the Dean's squeeze.
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