This was my first experience of directing a show without having a co-pilot!
And this is what the bumf said:
Festive Road
is keeping it local with their new theatre piece Fair Play.
This is the story of two
sisters who begin their journey on the family farm but everything changes when
the Trickster comes on the scene (cue: boo, hiss!)
The characters tell the
story of trade, taking the audience from the fields and power houses of past
and present, to the most recent incarnations of market places; the disconnected
shopping experience presented by faceless corporations. And as the sleeping
giant is gradually revealed within the ever transforming landscape, hand held
puppets, projections and larger than life characters are played and animated
with physicality and humour. The show even uses a cycle powered generator!
A positive future is in
sight, in which we are all responsible for the giant that commerce has created;
the solutions remain in our hands."
The ideas grew out of a round-table discussion among friends. In hindsight the subject was fairly predictable for me: consumerism, the take over of public space, the faceless face of modern commerce. The older I get the more I realise the latent Maxist within!
In my role as Artistic Director of MK Festival Fringe, I had been working with various people in marketing companies who safeguard the commercial interests, (the shopping zones), in central Milton Keynes. There is an on going battle to place art and stage performance in these 'seemingly public' spaces but I was also interested in the idea that our huge chain shops have become unable to respond quickly to demand. Their production is so far away from the consumer (literally in another world) that they have to create the demand for products, ie tell us what we don't realise we need, predict (or subliminally set) the winter fashions in the previous Spring etc. I was imagining how, if only people understood the mob power they had, simply deciding that the fodder-fed fashion of the day wasn't what they wanted, maybe they could break the whole chain?
The discussion extended to world food production, the disconnect from reality which now exists in the developed countries and the reliance on long distance imports, cheap labour and other unethical goings on...
It wasn't that there was one simple narrative we could pull out, at least nothing chronological like the revolution from agricultural, to industrial Britain -it couldn't always be blamed on the Victorians! Empire building, mass production, exploitation of people, industrialisation and consumer rich societies are not restricted geographically and pop up and down throughout time, they rise and fall like the sea.
Beyond the initial discussion of ideas (which may have been more about me getting the opportunity to have a good rant?) a group of performers were gathered -all people who I'd worked with before so we had a head start: Natali Bass (physical performer), Manuela Benini (dancer) and Allan Davies (story teller). The next stage was to create a narrative and we approached this collaboratively, all coming from different angles!
I already had a clear idea about creating a transforming set which turned from rural, to urban, to digital and which finally became a standing faceless giant so with a couple of other team members; Nick Garnett, Emma Garafalo and Paul Smith (all makers), we created the story, designed the set and sketched the characters -two sisters who begin on the family farm, the trickster or middle man (based on the Trinidadian Midnight Robber) and the various extras; marketeers, robots, shelf-packers -which the three performers all doubled up as.
The devising and rehearsal process was also very collaborative and Natali, Allan and Manuela were very supportive of my 'learning journey'. Having co-directed a previous Festive Road production, Brewing Up (but in reality it had been more like shadowing), I was an inexperienced director. As the process continued, I became more and more confident about my ideas and how to shape the show -to make it work. It was an interesting dynamic to work with; Allan -the archetypal source rich, language reliant story teller, Manuela -the abstract, non-linear sense of a dancer and Natali -the 'turn it on its head', mime world of the physical clown.
If I'm honest I had no idea how hard it was going to be holding all of that! But the end result was pleasing and was well received at all the schools which we performed at.
By the time we came to share the work at a public performance, hosted by The Chrysalis Theatre in Milton Keynes, the piece had been tweaked many times and was really quite well resolved.
I had the idea to bring in a bit of a local produce sale as a wrap around, to create a whole audience experience which fitted with the Chrysalis Theatre ethos. The Camphill residents sold their fresh picked raspberries, home baked bread and local veg box schemes spread their wares in wheelbarrows in the theatre foyer as people entered.
Unfortunately we experience a bit of a technical mess up on the first performance which as luck would have it brought in the largest audience! The second showing was pretty perfect... we haven't performed it since but it's available for bookings. It would be great to perform at a summer food festival? Take a look at the promo video
If I'm honest I had no idea how hard it was going to be holding all of that! But the end result was pleasing and was well received at all the schools which we performed at.
By the time we came to share the work at a public performance, hosted by The Chrysalis Theatre in Milton Keynes, the piece had been tweaked many times and was really quite well resolved.
I had the idea to bring in a bit of a local produce sale as a wrap around, to create a whole audience experience which fitted with the Chrysalis Theatre ethos. The Camphill residents sold their fresh picked raspberries, home baked bread and local veg box schemes spread their wares in wheelbarrows in the theatre foyer as people entered.
Unfortunately we experience a bit of a technical mess up on the first performance which as luck would have it brought in the largest audience! The second showing was pretty perfect... we haven't performed it since but it's available for bookings. It would be great to perform at a summer food festival? Take a look at the promo video
