Author Archives: Lisa Wolfe

About Lisa Wolfe

Lisa Wolfe is a freelance theatre producer and project manager of contemporary small-scale work. Companies and people she has supported include: Thirunarayan Productions, A&E Comedy, Three Score Dance, Pocket Epics, Jennifer Irons, Tim Crouch, Liz Aggiss, Sue MacLaine, Spymonkey and many more. Lisa was Marketing Manager at Brighton Dome and Festival (1989-2001) and has also worked for South East Dance, Chichester Festival Theatre and learning disability arts charity Carousel. She is an occasional performer and installation maker in collaboration with other artists, and is a Trustee at Brighton Open Air Theatre.

Bambie: Eleonora

Jochem Stavenuiter is fifteen. Slouchy, a grunter, in his bedroom turning up the volume on his masterblaster. He escapes to run fast across the fields to the dyke and to scream and scream.

It is an instantly recognisable teenage response to crisis and perfectly captures the changes going on in the lives of Jochem and his mother, who has recently had a severe and brain-altering stroke.

The ninety minutes that follow are by turns affecting, thought provoking and gently humorous. The progression of Eleonora’s illness is told with a direct honesty that is compelling.

On a space filled with little more than a random selection of wooden chairs, Jochem creates the main locations of his story. The house the family lives in, the ‘plantage’ where his mother now lives, his schoolroom, and the flat landscape of the Dutch countryside.

Subtle music provides atmosphere and punctuates key moments of action but never overwhelms. The piece is well lit too, with the audience not in total darkness, bringing us closer to the actor and his characters.

There is a narrative thread skillfully woven through the performance. One night, having sung with her regular choir, Eleonora is taken by taxi to a hospital 35km away where she is staying to have tests. But, forgetfully given the wrong surname, she is not recognised on the computer and is turned away. It is 11.30pm. She has dementia. It is raining.

Flashback to the ‘plantage’ for a longer section that illustrates Eleonora’s daily life and Jochem’s weekly visits to her. Here we get to grips with what life is like for someone with a short-term memory, whose sons get progressively younger in her mind, who casts other patients as characters in a play, who gets flashes of insight into current time then disappears into the past.

Jochem is fascinated by the other inmates as befits a soon-to-be actor. He enacts some of them, the ex-bank CEO who strides about demanding ‘the code’ for the door until he wears out his body and has to be strapped into a wheelchair; the man who dangles slime from his mouth like a trophy; the Afro-American woman who strokes the carpeted table and talks softly to herself all day long.

He has great physicality and doesn’t overplay these representations. It is a touchstone of the whole performance style of the play, balanced and careful.

He also presents his frustration both with his mother in her moments of complete disorientation and with his inability to do more for her, to bring her back.

Then forward to the night when there is ringing at the door at 4am and outside is Eleonora, cold and wet. She has found her way home from the distant hospital. How she did this, with only 25 guilders in her purse, we, and Jochem, never know.

The play is nicely devoid of post-modernism until a final twist (spoiler alert). It is present day, and Jochem describes a cycle ride home with a chum, on which he is navigated, not to his flat, but to a rehabilitation centre where he apparently now lives.

It is a glimpse at what it might be like to live in his mother’s brain as much as a reflection on the games that theatre can play.

Bambie is a Dutch performance group founded twenty years ago by Jochem Stavenuiter and Paul van der Laan. Eleonora is directed by Hans Man in’t Veld and was performed in English for the first time at the Basement as part of the SICK festival, supported by The Wellcome Trust, Arts Council England and Brighton and Hove City Council.

Red for the City, Blue for the Seaside

A weekend at ‘the nation’s capital of seaside entertainment’ by Lisa Wolfe (writer) and Peter Chrisp (photographer/researcher)

Friday 15 February 2013

Vic Godard and the Subway Sect’s lyrics accompany our journey North from one slightly seedy beach-front tourist destination (Brighton) to this one:

“Good old fun-packed Blackpool by the sea.
Flat-capped sex trap Blackpool.
One day they’ll come and pull the whole place down.”

This is the sixth Showzam! Festival, promoted and produced by VisitBlackpool in partnership with Professor Vanessa Toulmin. For us it is a first visit to this notorious working-class seaside city of fun; how will Vic Godard’s lyrics chime with us I wonder?

It is a glorious evening, the sea and miles of sand glowing orange in the late sun. Our Victorian red brick hotel, the only one right on the promenade, shines like Tuscan terracotta. Inside it goes a bit Victorian Gothic, with wood panelling and an overly bright blue. Once a Butlins, always a Butlins.

There is just time to catch the light on some shop fronts in their tawdry beauty before heading to the Winter Gardens for our first show.

6pm Spookshow by Spymonkey

The venue is eerily quiet for a Friday night. A small group gathers in the only available bar for a quick stiffener; we are about to be Spooked by Spymonkey. We are led up through the (unfortunately closed) 1929 Galleon Bar to a darkened Baronial Hall. Here, lit by candles and torches, Tony Perks, MPhil (Toby Park) and Dominique von Essenundtrinken (Petra Massey) introduce themselves and their remit for tonight’s show. This is the standard Spymonkey opener – establishing character and wrong footing audience expectation of what is to come. Petra’s diction is an inspired mixture of mock-Bavarian (Bawarian, soft w) from Germany, soft G. She and Toby dig at each other; they are pompous idiots and we are in safe hands. Basura (Aitor Basauri) and Kurt (Stephan Kreiss) complete the cast. Their hands are less safe; particularly Kurt’s who, pushing a wire through his veins with glee, drips stage blood into a bucket.

A variety of spooky scenes, manifestations and gory, bad magic follow, in different parts of what is now revealed as a large and somewhat kitsch interior. Moving the audience around by torchlight is charmingly done, if a bit ad-hoc. It will improve with more time in the space. Star turns include Kurt’s persistent blood lust evidenced through tricks such as sawing Basura’s hand off (done with gusto by a volunteer) and a mind-control sequence that goes horribly wrong as the ‘volunteer’s’ head is blown off; the audience yelps.

There is a delightful filmed sequence of the opening of Nefertiti’s tomb with live interaction in the Forkbeard / 1927 tradition, complete with sand-dance and comedy walks.

The finale is a hilarious combination of Abigail’s Party and Rosemary’s Babywith a touch of The Exorcist for good measure. This piece shows the company’s acting chops. The characters are all brilliantly on the button and the script is properly funny. ‘I blame Harold Wilson’s government,’ splutters the hairy chested lothario Tony (Aitor Basauri) as he drags off a suitcase containing a deranged Angela (Petra Massey).

Directed by John Nicholson (Peepolykus) Spooked was shown as work-in-progress and has been formed in the room, which isn’t an easy space to navigate over just three days. The main pieces are brilliant flashes of the Spymonkey genius and Spooked could become a fine new entry to their repertoire.

7.30pm Time only for chips. I am quietly pleased to be forced to eat the staple diet. A cheery chap in the Corner Chippy provides.

8pm The Dancer and the Devil by Rogue Theatre

Grabbing another libation from the one open bar, we head next to the Winter Garden’s Pavilion Theatre.

A path of dead branches, old photos, suitcases and dusty books marks our way along the Horseshoe promenade that rings the theatre. A woman in Victorian style costume (Laverna, our hostess) ushers us with a throwaway ‘sit anywhere’. There is a lack of theatrical flourish or care about this first moment of audience engagement that worries us.

It is a big room with cabaret style tables and is rather chilly. The stage is fulsomely cluttered with the period paraphernalia that shouts out “Vaudeville! Corsets! White faces! Nostalgia!” A fake proscenium arch and curtain presents an initial impression of lavishness. In reality the theatre is a shell, with no backstage and no wings and sadly this is a metaphor for the show itself.

There are so many layers of narrative device here that all sense of story, as written by Anna Maria Murphy, gets lost. The piece is set in Laverna’s Limbo Lounge, where a group of performers, fleeing their past lives and scarred by war-time secrets, play out their destiny on her stage each night. Exactly what wars, or why limbo (so there can be a devil perhaps) is unclear. It is really an overcomplicated vehicle for the individual talents of the cast. There follows a series of character turns from the cast of women, introduced and framed by Jacob the Devil (founder member Ollie Oakenshield) such as Cupcakes (Becky Bordeaux) who makes bad cakes, and Celeste (Gemma Kempthorne) who has to dance herself free of demons.

It is a hard space to work, with a small, high stage and a gulf between audience and performers. Director Angelina Boscarelli does her best at containing the action. Good judgement is shown in the selection of Rory, from ‘the Colonies’ who provides a blast of energy and fun as he spins Cupcakes on a wheel of fortune. But given that the show is supposedly story-led, this insert, welcome though it is, is an odd fit.

The live music and singing by multi-skilled new musical director Ben Sutcliffe is great and some performances are strong enough to overcome the shortcomings. I can see it working much better where there is a closer relationship with the audience, in the woods perhaps, where it was originally produced. The leaflet promised wild thrills. Beware what you promise.

10pm The evening ends with a nightcap in the Cedar Tavern, the only other customers a couple and a dog. One has a pink Mohican. Not the dog. We share a snack described as a ‘ploughman’s lunch in a packet’. That’s a first for me. There is a Sooty collecting box behind the bar (Sooty was ‘discovered’ on the Central Pier; there is a blue plaque) and a dartboard on which I score a triple then break a flight. The barman comes over for a chat. They really are very friendly people up North.

Whilst music blares out of bars there is little evidence of on-street partying or unmentionable behaviour and the hotel’s in-house entertainment seems to be over. An early night – in the party capital of Lancashire, what’s going on?

Saturday 16 February

Breakfast in a big, busy room; it looks like the sun might break through. We catch a tram to the Pleasure Beach where I want to see the old Big Dipper. But the entrance fee is high and time short so we make do with walking around the perimeter and peering in through gates. A whiz round Ripley’s ‘Believe It Or Not!’ is small compensation, though I find the captions infuriating as they all say ‘Believe It Or Not!’ at the start or end of every sentence.

Noon: Winter Gardens Tour with Professor Vanessa Toulmin (University of Sheffield)

The Winter Gardens is a complicated combination of buildings, spanning several periods of construction, destruction, re-build and adjustment, ownership and purpose. Professor Vanessa is an extremely knowledgeable and confident guide to this complex scenario, spilling out dates, facts and anecdotes with enthusiasm and total passion for the place. She has been involved in its restoration, and is largely responsible for saving parts of it from demolition, working at cabinet level for the past seven years. Blackpool is very lucky to have her.

As she is explaining the main building periods (1875, 1888 and 1939) and the premise, akin to Crystal Palace, of an inside ‘resort’ for the middle classes to winter in – no spitting, no dancing – who should stride into the foyer but Christopher Biggins. ‘Listen to the Professor,’ he commands. ‘I am speechless!’ Vanessa says as he walks away. A dramatic swivel from Mr B, ‘Oh no you’re not!’

We are led through the metal girded promenade, which echoes St Pancras Station and has lovely blue faience tiles, into the Empress Ballroom, opened in 1896 to compete with the Tower Ballroom of 1894.

Next is the Opera House in its Art Deco glory, and we are given access to backstage and private rooms. The Prof is justly proud of saving this gem and looking forward to it being restored to its proper colour scheme in due course. It previously had a Frank Matcham interior, hosting circuses and opened by Sarah Bernhardt – in French. Later we are shown the fabulous tiled entrance that had been painted over and boarded up that was found on a late-night, undercover investigation.

The Horseshoe Promenade once surrounded the whole building, glass fronted and bringing the outside in. The Pavilion Theatre was largely gutted and is now in jeopardy.

Spymonkey are rehearsing so we can’t go into the Baronial Hall, but Professor Vanessa tells us about Atmospheric Architecture in the equally theatrical Spanish Hall (designed by Andrew Mazzei, a Hollywood film set designer).

Finally the Olympia, a big open space which once held freak shows and arcades, and is being used for the The Wookey Hole Circus School and side-shows. It is agreeably busy with families and diverse groups of people enjoying the main event, the side-shows and the old penny machines.

5pm Kindly barman Mr Phil Guthrie shows us the interior of the Grand Theatre. A Matcham gem, it has been restored to its original colour – blue. Matcham theatres were always blue for the seaside, red for the town. Phil fully expects Ken Dodd to ‘do a Tommy Cooper’ here, i.e. die on stage.

6.30pm Dinner at the Mandarin Chinese, where the wallpaper and interior was inspired by Brighton’s Royal Pavilion, which the maitresse ‘d loves.

8pm The Carnival Ball, Tower Ballroom

The grandest and most lavishly decorated ballroom in Britain, surely?

We are just about adequately attired for this night of 1920s music, dance and entertainment. Everyone is in full party mode, dressed to the nines, dancing the Charleston, and having a wonderful time.

Our hosts The Sugar Dandies provide a suitably camp touch with song and dance routines. The Alex Mendham Orchestra is delightful and a great new find for me. There is a dancing troupe Les Girls – with a token man. Desiree, who performs a butterfly dance inspired by Martha Graham, and a feather contortionist dance, has a strong presence. Hoola Hoops always amaze audiences and tonight’s dancer doesn’t disappoint. She may not have the glamour of Marawa The Amazing but the skill level is high. Romany – Diva of Magic conjures birdcages from the air in a brief plug for her solo show. The Invisible Circus make a similarly short appearance to promote The Last Waltz, the big event of next week, commissioned by Showzam and separately funded by The Arts Council.

Comedy is supplied by Granny Turismo on motorized shopping trollies, making full use of this fantastic floor, and Spymonky who bring the house to its knees with their Joan of Arc skit.

Dancing continues until 2am, and dance we do.

This is Professor Vanessa’s final Showzam. The throng of Blackpool residents clearly know and value her. She is presented with flowers by Chris Pope, who takes over next year. Chris tells me he wants to involve more local people in the Festival, and broaden its appeal. There is certainly scope for that, above and beyond the workshops, tours and street theatre it currently offers. He’ll need to bring in some national or international performances too, in order to generate the tourist market that VisitBlackpool needs in this off-peak period and to support the regeneration of public spaces in which they and others have invested. I hope he gets out and about to seek the best performance of its kind; new and adventurous and using the phenomenal architectural pleasures of the city.

So, to return to my opening salvo, ‘Pull the whole place down’? Go to Showzam! next year, Mr Godard – you may want to write a new song.

David Greig / National Theatre of Scotland: The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart

Another huge international hit for The National Theatre of Scotland (following Black Watch, Beautiful Burnout and Midsummer), I’d somehow managed to miss the initial performances and tour of Prudencia Hart – even when it was on Brighton’s Palace Pier last year. I had caught a few minutes of it at Edinburgh in 2011, and I now think my instinct not to rush to see it was right, as, against the opinion of almost everyone else who has seen it, I was not entirely convinced.

Charlotte Smith reviews that Edinburgh version and describes it just right. There have been some cast changes, but fortunately the wonderful David McKay still plays the devil and is the core of the play. But all the performers are strong, and that they manage to keep it as fresh and seem to have real joy in their performance after six months constant touring is remarkable. The music (composed by Alasdair Macrae) is a pleasure, and the Wise Hall is yet another great site for the piece.

Care and involvement of the audience, including the whisky shot and the sandwiches, are good crowd-pleasers. There are some highly inventive directorial moments as well, courtesy of Wils Wilson. I particularly liked the slowed-down voice of an over-long lecture delivered by arrogant academic Colin Syme (Paul McCole), and the evocation of a row of books in hell – where every book that ever was or would be are held.

What troubles me is the writing. I find it overly sentimental despite the descent into hell; Prudencia’s journey is too simply resolved, while the narrative veers very broadly across themes.

The PuSh Festival audience loved the show. It ran for nearly three hours. It will endure, and audiences in Perth next week will love it too. For me, though, a bit more about Border Ballads and a bit less showbiz would have made it a more enriching experience.

http://www.nationaltheatrescotland.com/content

Hiroaki Umeda: Haptic / Holistic Strata

A black box becomes a white box then fades to grey. A blue line appears across the centre, dissolves, then reappears stage front. Into the shadow comes a figure, in silhouette. Hiroaki begins to move, isolating limbs, electronic beats behind him. He seems to emit energy. In this new twenty minute piece, there is much to marvel at and savour. The technique, a mixture of Butoh and breakbeat is seamless; he is like a shape-shifter. At one point he holds a position with the heel of his left foot off the ground, as if mid-stride. I try this later myself – it is fiendishly difficult. Whilst watching, I realise that I don’t know what haptic means. Hiroaki says: ‘what I want is to transmit sensations, rather than messages, to the audience’. He does this, and the sensations are great. Haptic means non- verbal forms of communication, such as the Japanese custom of bowing and not touching. Hiroaki uses his body to touch us and the piece has some emotional drive to it; it is no way cold. At the end, the soundscape fades out and we hear his footsteps and breath in the dark. Through his incredible control, sense of rhythm, use of space and light and sound, he embeds Haptic into the communal memory.

Holistic Strata starts with a casual stroll on stage and a twist of neck, then boom! – all is plunged into blackout except for Hiroaki. He has become light, a TGI figure, morphing from human to something other. Planes shift as streaks of flashing light move across and perspective dissolves. It is a thirty minute assault of the senses. A woman in front of me audibly gasps a couple times as the effects become more extreme, the auditorium seeming to revolve at one point. In the centre of all this visual noise Hiroaki dances on, his form like liquid mercury. The sound becomes overwhelming and I would have liked more harmony or contrast, but as a spectacle it is very effective and the choreography is as compelling as in Haptic. There are echoes of Saburo Teshigawara, and I am reminded of Akram Khan’s combination of Kathak and contemporary dance. Hiroaki came quite late to dance, having studied as a photographer. He has certainly brought all his knowledge to this piece. Mesmerising stuff; and he didn’t leave the floor once.

www.hiroakiumeda.com

Dan R Martin: The Black Dog and Other Influences

A newcomer to Brighton’s range of intimate spaces for intimate theatre, The Dukebox nestles at the back of the Iron Duke pub and is a good setting for Dan R Martin’s text-based two-hander.

Billed as a black comedy about manic depression, The Black Dog and Other Influences is a fast-paced exchange of ideas, scenarios and characters. A splintered conversation between therapist and patient, it teases the audience’s expectations as the actors swap roles, break through the fourth wall, discuss the making of the play, and somehow manage to give a pretty good overview of the life of a manic depressive.

Actor Roger Kennedy gives a great and understated performance; he has natural warmth and switches from comedy to attack convincingly. Less successful is Dan Martin, who could take his performance down several notches in volume and physicality.

Simply staged with two chairs, directorially there is just some getting up, walking about and sitting down. In bare feet. Further consideration of where the performers’ eyes should be focused needs a bit of attention; it would help delineate between the actor/character shift in this meta-theatrical language. Limitations of space require more creative thinking.

The strength is in the writing. The Black Dog and Other Influences interweaves the process of writing a play with that of undergoing therapy in a script that is sparky, full of good contemporary references and a fine sense of fun.

Total Theatre