Author Archives: Edward Wren

About Edward Wren

Edward Wren is a theatre maker, performer, musician and puppeteer. Founded in 2007, his company The River People won a Total Theatre Award in 2009 and has since toured nationally and internationally.

TR Warszawa and Teatr Narodowy: Nosferatu

At a time of year when all things Gothic crawl out from the woodwork, it can be difficult to find a theatrical offering that presents what is very familiar in a unique or interesting way. TR Warszawa’s Nosferatu is thankfully doing just that with its interpretation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, a well-worn text if ever there was one. The renowned Polish theatre company have produced a seductive piece that explores the relationship between ideas and reality, and the place where temptation and fear flutter nervously together in the interplay between light and dark.

The first scene opens on the cast spread out across the sumptuously designed stage, the frankly outstanding lighting casting an eerie pallor over them as they discuss the possibility of a particle moving faster than the speed of light. The tone of the piece soon makes it clear that this is not going to be a standard drama: everything is just a little strange. Lucy, the object of Nosferatu’s dark desire, emits an aura of peculiarity as she floats across the stage seemingly half asleep, delivering lines in a breathy sigh.

Then director Grzegorz Jarzyna makes a clear statement regarding how we are to begin watching the piece by placing several moments of still silence in the early scenes. For what feels like minutes we watch as Lucy sleeps, the passing of time marked by the soft billowing breath of the curtains as they flutter at the side of the stage, and by the gently shifting light which changes by near imperceptible degrees as the day passes. The effect is utterly dreamlike; perhaps in any other production I might have been bored but here there was an electric atmosphere bubbling beneath the surface that left me unable to take my eyes away from the stage.

The Unreal then slowly invades the production as Nosferatu makes his entrance, dry ice creeps out from the curtains, and Lucy is seemingly seduced by the smog. The tension on stage continues to build as the play progresses, the horror mingling with sexuality as Nosferatu and Lucy intertwine in their dark embrace and Lucy’s naked corpse is later examined by the doctor. The resulting arousal of the senses in the audience is very effective. The lighting too undergoes a journey as shadows are thrown across the stage and light is reflected, continually playing with what is real and what is a mere reflection. In one theatrical moment that I shall never forget, gauze was dropped across the stage and projection put to utterly scintillating use, leaving me completely unable to discern what was real and what was not as ash white roses bloomed from the smog and climbed high into the air in front of my eyes.

Gradually the characters in the piece are all destroyed by Nosferatu’s presence – seduced, sent mad or murdered. The stage also reflects the gradual decline into the abyss as the once detailed set slowly disappears one piece at a time, until eventually a bare stage is all that is left.

Nosferatu does not seem very intent on clear storytelling or escalating pace; rather like the dark prince himself it draws you in, seduces you, and in a dream-like state you find yourself embraced by the eerie atmosphere. It’s a visually stunning piece with impeccable design and some of the best lighting I’ve ever seen put to use. The cast, as well, are excellent and the direction is brave and poignant, casting a spell over the audience that lingered long after I had disappeared into the night.

www.trwarszawa.pl

Cyclopean Productions: Drowning Rock

Drowning Rock is an epic tale of horror, set against the backdrop of a tempestuous sea. Inspired by Cornish legends of shipwrecks and the work of H.P Lovecraft, the original script written by Matthew Wood tells the tale of Hawker, a young man researching the mysterious Drowning Rock to finish the book his father began but left uncompleted following his unexplained death.

‘Horror theatre’ is a very tricky thing to accomplish, especially so without the big budget and effects of large-scale productions such as The Woman in Black, but Cyclopean Productions do a very admirable job with a four-person cast of skilled actors and a small studio space. For example the first entrance of the sea witch provided a distinct moment of terror as she appeared suddenly in the half light. The sound effects are also put to good use – most notably the high-pitched screeching that accompanied the light turning at the top of the tower, an effect which really set the audience on edge and left a lingering feeling of suspense in its wake. In the darkest and perhaps the best moment, the sea witch appears to be feeding on a baby, and I really felt my skin crawl as she looked to the audience, illuminated only by a torch, with white eyes and deep red blood dripping from her smiling mouth.

These flashes of intrigue do well to keep the piece afloat during the first hour, but the remorseless amount of text soon begins to drown any atmosphere, and soon enough the scare moments become a tediously predicable game of spot the witch, as Hawker once again stumbles around the stage with a torch. If the piece was able to build and develop upon the special effects it put to use then the horror might have been able to escalate, but as it was the fear factor soon diminished when the same trick was used multiple times. By the time the Star Trek style growling green lizard jumps out towards the end what should be fearful has become laughable.

The piece suffers for having been both written and directed by the same person, as it largely lacks style. The set consists of dull grey blocks and white tarpaulin hung unceremoniously at the back of the stage, providing a very ineffectual backdrop for some projection that is difficult to make out. The result is that there is no atmosphere on stage – for the most part the actors stand there and talk, albeit with skill and commitment to their roles. But there are precious few moments when the text stops and silent visuals are allowed to tell the story. Even when Hawker is stumbling around in the dark in the build up to seeing a ghost he is still yapping on, and I found myself desperate for silence to be given a chance to build suspense.

By the end of the hour and forty minutes the script had entirely taken over the performance; I was exceptionally lost in the convoluted plot and struggled to understand what was happening, and the lack of horror or suspense left me cold. With such promising beginnings this production has undoubted potential; with less words and more style it might flourish.

Ovalhouse and Toot Collective: Ten Out of Ten

Ten Out of Ten uses humour along with unconventional staging to explore ideas surrounding success and failure, focusing on the life of one fictional character, Jennifer, as she’s played variously by the members of the strong, three-person cast. It is an inventive, often hilarious and occasionally touching examination of the milestones by which we record our growth as individuals.

The seating consists of individual chairs, spread out across the space, so that the action takes place along the very edges of the room and within the audience itself. The form is that of a lecture/seminar, proposing to examine success and failure with particular reference to one girl’s life. Terry O’Donovan, Clare Dunn and Stuart Barter perform with great skill, weaving themselves through the audience and passing the focus to each other from scene to scene. We are asked at the beginning to get involved with the performance, and the name badges we are invited to wear when we pick up our tickets allows the performers to address us directly. From there we are witness to a montage of moments from Jennifer’s life: her achievements, her first date, her first job and also her failures.

The radical staging places the audience out of their comfort zone and brings them very close to the performance; the performers themselves move through the rows and are often close enough to touch. For me, this brought Jennifer’s life closer, and made me feel her success and failings had some reflection on my own – although I perhaps wasn’t sure exactly what that reflection was.

The scenes and techniques the cast use to explore each section can vary in their success. For example, the scene in which we are asked to read a letter from Jennifer to her pen pal did an excellent job of painting a very real picture of the character at a specific moment in her life. However, the scene in which an audience member is invited to ‘test their metal’, involving them guessing the weight of one of three pieces of metal, was very funny but did nothing at all to advance my understanding of the piece.

These moments seem to have a cumulative effect however, for I found myself particularly moved during the emotional climax of the piece – a drawing/dance sequence that travelled all around the space. And the line dance we are taught at the very end provided unbridled joy as we all succeeded as a group in learning the steps.

The sense of fun invention put to use in the staging and delivery of this performance must be applauded. It’s a piece that plays with its form, and this type of work is very important in an industry that requires constant evolution and exploration. The content of the piece can waver in its efficacy. I felt that the story was important within the context of the performance; however, I would have liked to be able to apply some of the themes of the piece more overtly to my own life, and perhaps to have left the theatre with a greater sense of introspection than I did. However, this is an important piece, engaging, playful and thoroughly entertaining. Well worth going to see.

Berlin Nevada: Still Night

I’m sitting in the Battersea Arts Centre in a dark room; through headphones Marco Polo quietly whispers his description of a fantastical city. Fans blow the soft scent of jasmine across the room. ‘Relax into your seat,’ a voice tells me. ‘You are the Kublai Khan.’ We sit for awhile, me and Polo, in my sumptuous palace garden in Xanadu, while he shares his poetical depictions of the many wondrous cities that lay across the vast reaches of my empire.

Still Night is based on the novel Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino, in which the Kublai Khan is given fantastical descriptions of the cities in his empire by Marco Polo. London-based Berlin Nevada have extended this vision to London and have presented Still Night as a lecture about the city, aiming to place it under a theatrical and fantastical lens. There is a lot that works very well, but there is also much that does not.

We are welcomed by Silvia Mercuriali, who gives us an overview of London, all in a nonsense language with only the odd English word. This nonsensical device provides much humour and allows us to warm to our storyteller. It also prompts us to find our own interpretation of what she is saying, our own imagining of the city. This is a theme taken directly from the novel as Polo and the Kahn speak different languages and derive their own interpretations from each other.

After Mercuriali has covered the obvious landmarks she begins to search for the hidden side of the city. She catches the city’s reflection in the water and wonders how she can get to the ‘London below’. This is where the show began to get really interesting as my mind went reeling as to what she would discover in this mysterious mirror world. But unfortunately it is also where the show loses itself. From that point we are asked to wear the headphones and are told the stories of Polo’s adventures.

The technique is utterly beguiling and works very well in and of itself. However it does nothing to further the aim of the piece, which is to explore London. Instead we move into more of a theatrical presentation of the source material, which, however lovely it is, derails the piece entirely.

From there it sort of meanders off, as the novel imposes itself more and more on the production the whole aim of the piece is lost. Then when co-performer Gemma Brockis dons a huge horse head and pretends to be Polo’s horse I couldn’t help but wonder if they had forgotten why they started.

The ending could have saved the whole thing. As they began to take down the shutters from the windows and the street light spilled in I expected to be given a view of the city outside that would put all that precedes into context – but sadly only a couple of windows at the far side of the stage were revealed, through which we had no vantage to see the city that should have been the star of the show. The piece then suddenly ended as we were told that a technical failure meant that they couldn’t show us a final video epilogue.

With technical difficulties aside the play currently does not get anywhere near to achieving the aims it sets out for itself, but it so easily could do. The source material is rich, the performers are very strong, and with a little tweaking the techniques could be used to a much more satisfying purpose. I hope they keep working on it; if executed effectively this could be a great piece of theatre, even if it’s just not quite there yet.

The Tiger Lillies perform Hamlet

The anticipation was palpable in London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall: the Tiger Lillies were returning to the stage, this time providing the music to a version ofHamlet produced by the Copenhagen-based Republique Theatre Company. Being a long-time fan of their music, my hopes were high for this production, and to anyone who is used to watching standard adaptations of Shakespeare it would have been an eye-opening spectacle. Even for the more theatrically experienced, in fact, it provides moments of breathtaking stagecraft, but there is something about the way it is all put together that holds it back from being the full and rounded theatrical experience that I so wanted it to be.

The opening makes many promises that the show struggles to keep. After an introduction from Martin Jacques, the always compelling front-man of the Tiger Lillies, the curtain rises on a banquet scene, but we see it from a bird’s-eye view. The performers are gathered around a table turned on its side, all of them apparently sitting at an angle parallel to the floor, whilst bassist Adrian Stout hovers above them on a wire like a grotesque cherub.

This is one of a handful of moments that produced an audible gasp from the audience, and an example of the blinding brilliance that pops up from time to time. Ophelia’s drowning is another. Using wires to walk up the wall Nanna Finding Koppel performs an elegant and beautiful scene in the air against a projected backdrop of water, whilst Jacques’s heart piercing falsetto underscores. The effect is electric.

But it is the storytelling that holds the piece back. Director Martin Tulinius has opted for an acting style that varies from pretty standard Shakespearean delivery to grotesque surrealism. The actors were prone to performing suddenly in slow motion or to unexpected bouts of screaming. They also didn’t have enough time to connect with each other or to develop in themselves, as the story was stripped down to only its essential components. This might have been OK if the role of the Tiger Lillies was to push the story forward. But many of the songs were merely reflective, focusing on a single theme such as madness or murder, and were seldom used to help the audience understand what was going on. It felt as if a pre-existing knowledge of Hamlet was expected from the crowd – perhaps unavoidable with such a famous play, but not necessarily right. The piece was a little inaccessible as a result.

By the second half, the presence of the Tiger Lillies began to weigh the piece down as everything stopped while they performed a song. It began to feel like the music and the action were working against each other as a pattern emerged of dialogue followed by song.

Perhaps most disappointingly, apart from a few exceptions, the music was standard for the Tiger Lillies. Exactly what you would expect them to produce. It lacked any surprises or sparkles of magic that may have elevated the piece.

I feel troubled by this show: I enjoyed it, the whole audience seemed to enjoy it, but, perhaps because of my high hopes, it seemed not to fulfil itself. The components were all very good – the moving set that toppled down onto the stage, the beautiful wire work, the haunting underscore – and when they all came together it produced an awe-inspiring theatrical symphony unlike anything else I’ve seen. But when they didn’t work together the play felt limp; the parts that shone did so so brightly that they made the dull parts stick out all the more.

When the heavily understated ending was done (in which, inexplicably, we didn’t clearly see Hamlet enact his revenge on his uncle) and sections of the audience stood in ovation, I was left only with a quiet disappointment at how brilliant it all might have been.