Author Archives: Dorothy Max Prior

About Dorothy Max Prior

Dorothy Max Prior is the editor of Total Theatre Magazine, and is also a performer, writer, dramaturg and choreographer/director working in theatre, dance, installation and outdoor arts. Much of her work is sited in public spaces or in venues other than regular theatres. She also writes essays and stories, some of which are published and some of which languish in bottom drawers – and she teaches drama, dance and creative non-fiction writing. www.dorothymaxprior.com

DV8 Physical Theatre: John

Meet John. John, we learn, had the sort of childhood that shakes your belief in the inherent goodness of human beings, and challenges the myth of the ‘caring society’ in this rich and supposedly civilised country of ours. John’s early life is one of immense poverty, marred by physical, emotional and sexual abuse. A life of slammed doors, dark corners, filthy mattresses, life-choking illnesses, abused women, raped babysitters, battered babies, whipped children. A life blighted by drink and drugs and petty crime. Shoplifting is the least of it, and ‘dysfunctional’ hardly begins to do it justice. At age 10, John is taken into care – he’s quite pleased, really. Adolescence sees John fulfilling his destiny, living in an ever-changing environment in which everything stays the same: another scuzzy hostel, another girlfriend whose problems are as bad or worse than his, another arrest, another hit of heroin or coke or whatever, upper or downer. Life goes on, somehow. Other than for those in John’s life who die and lie undiscovered for weeks, or who drain away slowly with dirty-needles-induced AIDS. And through it all, the inherent dignity and intelligence of our hero somehow shines through: at first, in little glimmers of humour in the midst of the mayhem; later, in the dawning of self-awareness that leads to re-evaluation and redemption.

How do we learn all of this? Through a fantastic combination of fluid physical expression and spoken word, performers twitching and toppling and turning on a revolving stage (designed by Anna Fleischle) sparsely furnished with a bed, a few chairs; the constantly shifting floor, the doors opening and just as quickly shutting, a beautiful metaphor for a life in which nothing is stable, the rug pulled out from under the feet again and again. The team of seven men and two women performers take on a whole host of characters in John’s life, the whole enacted with a relentless pace as we ricochet from home-as-prison to prison-as-home. The choreography is exquisite: this is Lloyd Newson’s DV8 we are talking about – you really wouldn’t expect anything less than an expressive and perfectly executed combination of meticulous gesture, loose-limbed Limon-esque release, and intense but sensitive contact dance: solos, duets, trios. Bodies lean and crumble. Legs buckle. Words are spoken in a ‘non actorly’ stream, often voiced in a strong accent, sometimes mumbled or slurred – at times you have to prick up your ears to hear what’s being said, but I like the way this keeps you on the edge of your seat. The soundscape is mostly made up of actors voicing verbatim texts derived from interviewing John and other men, and also includes (louder) voiceover-ed questions, and snatches of pop tracks from John’s youth: Mama Told Me Not to Come, Whole Lot of Love…

So, where were we? John as a young adult, living out the distresses of his upbringing. It gets worse. John has a kid he never sees, and ends up sleeping rough for five years, and is eventually jailed. He pulls himself together enough to trace the boy, now grown. His son agrees to meet him, but then changes his mind after Googling his dad and deciding he doesn’t like what he’s found. At this point, the show does an odd tilt, tipping us (without any proper explanation) into the world of gay saunas. The focus shifts from John onto myriad tales (from sauna owners and users) that present, in a calm and non-judgemental way, the reasons why gay men use saunas, and reflect on the issues that many gay men consider core to their lives and sexual choices: HIV status, the lure of condom-free sex, the risk of STDs, promiscuity versus monogamy. It is this section that has won DV8’s John its reputation as a ‘sleazy and immoral’ piece of work (at least, that’s how Quentin Letts of the Daily Mail saw it). A ludicrous assertion – these are stories that should be told, and are told with honesty and humour. My gripe is that here is not the place – the sauna section is a whole other potential new DV8 show, and takes us unnecessarily away from the core story of John’s life. Towards the end of the show, we learn that John has, in later years identified as gay, and is finding a new sense of self-worth in his new identity. But unlike the rest of John’s life, this information is told to us, not shown. It comes out of the blue – and we really miss knowing what exactly John’s process of self-discovery and coming out involved. The presented fact – that John is one of the users of the sauna – is not enough to justify the focus on the sauna and its clients in the show. I know I’m not alone in feeling a little bored in the sauna section, just dying to get back to John. When we do return to his story, there is a gorgeous coup-de-theatre when we suddenly, loud and clear, hear a voice-over of what we presume is John himself, stating his resolve to turn around his life: it’s a heartbreaking and life-affirming moment.

In the process of devising the show, writer/director Lloyd Newson interviewed 50 men about the subject of love and sex. John’s story emerged as the one that caught Newson’s attention, and he decided to make this story the focus of the show. But it almost feels as if he then chickened out, feeling that he had to somehow represent something of the lives and stories of the other 49 interviewees – hence the sauna section and the chorus of voices that this embraces. If ever a dramaturg were needed, here is a prime example. Someone really should have said ‘No Lloyd, stick to your guns, stick to John’. It is (I know) difficult when working with true-life stories: you feel that you need to honour your interviewees’ contributions. And perhaps in a community theatre project this is paramount, but in professional theatre, dramaturgical needs override all other considerations. This is John’s story and that should have remained the focus.

That said, this is such a strong piece of theatre, such an amazing core story, that ultimately all is forgiven. It may have its faults, but John’s extraordinary story is told so beautifully and lovingly by DV8 that this trumps all other considerations.

Basil Twist: Dogugaeshi

On the Barbican Pit stage, a screen, and within it another screen, and within it another, and another, and another… and so (almost) to infinity. We start with what appears to be an animated film – flickering images of tiny travelling people crossing a mountain, a boat tossing on the sea. These animations are actually created live, silhouette cut-outs moved manually; unseen operators flickering lights to give the impression of film. Then, a kind of toy theatre (minus the human figures) takes over, screens sliding in and out and flipping up and over as a palace of gold is constructed then destroyed, little gold columns becoming characters as they scuttle around pursued by a white fox who pops up and down cheekily like a Pokemon. It is interesting that almost no human figures feature in the show, yet it feels full of characters. But this is not surprising coming from Basil Twist, whose definition of puppetry goes far beyond the creation or animation of figurines (he has received an odd recent recognition in the UK as the designer of the dancing silks and other puppet-esque effects for Kate Bush).

Dogugaeshi is the name of the show, but also of the tradition it honours and explores. Its history is intrinsically linked to that of Japanese puppetry; the word ‘dogugaeshi’ literally means ‘set change’, and that is the essence of the form – a series of beautifully painted screens sliding open to reveal image after image in rapid succession. It is a practice that has fallen out of favour in recent years, and the story of the form itself informs the content of Basil Twist’s homage. The screens we see here (modelled on original Japanese screens the artist unearthed on a research trip) combine with reminders of the heritage, for example in a section showing film footage of elderly Japanese villagers recounting their memories of seeing Dogugaeshi performed in their childhood.

The piece has a gentle narrative, being a reflection on the passing of time itself – everything dissolves eventually, and there is nothing left but a white light at the end of a tunnel. The piece could best be described as poetic and theme-driven rather than dramatic in the usual sense; yet it is filled with stories, a whole host of small dramas. A sensory delight of moving pictures unfolds as images bow in and bow out – now you see me, now you don’t. Sometimes in 2D, colours and patterns – luscious orchids and frangipani, long-tailed curling dragons, art-deco-ish abstracts, monochrome high-heeled boots – emerging like living wallpaper, or like a big colourful flickerbook; at other times playing with 3D, real and imagined, perspective shifting with the eye, taking in the opening-up depths (some real, some an illusion created by the paintings on the screens, or by the video projection used with them). As the screens slide out and in and up and down (with an earthy, satisfying clunkiness), a landscape builds, dissolves, rebuilds; a place where traditional Japanese woodcuts and drawings, contemporary Manga and Anime, impressions of modern day Japan, and icons of twentieth-century design all contribute. The climax of the show gives us a sequence of no less than 88 painted screens as the destroyed palace re-instates itself, triumphant. A metaphor, yes…

The visual spectacle is augmented by the beautiful live Gidayu music of Yumiko Tanaka, Twist’s collaborator in this project. Together (and in collaboration with a second sound designer, Greg Duffin) they explore the tug between the old and the new. Tanaka straddles the world between traditional form and experimental music practice, her live Shamisen playing and singing blending effortlessly with the recorded soundtrack that uses electronics, sampled sound (snatches of old dance tunes rise and fall), and recordings of treated voice and acoustic instrument. At times it is hard to tell what is being created live and what isn’t – always a good sign. She is seated to the side of the screens and is sometimes visible and sometimes not. Although she often circles off on her revolving turntable when not playing, sometimes she sits quietly with her back to us looking at the screens – a wonderfully rapt and attentive witness to the action.

Also part of the action is a large puppet representation of a beautiful nine-tailed fox (a traditional Japanese puppet character) who is introduced occasionally as another witness to the dogugaeshi world explored. In one lovely moment, our fox friend dances across the front of the stage, and rests his/her head lovingly at Yumiko’s feet, honouring her contribution.

Behind the scenes, a team of three other puppeteers/operators – Kate Brehm, David Ojala, and Jessica Scott – join Basil Twist in what is no doubt a physically and mentally exhausting choreography of sliding and pulling and crouching and stretching, often in silent co-ordination with the person at the other end of the screen. Not to mention lighting and moving the real-live candles used in the show which somehow got pushed through UK theatre health-and-safety rules and regs!

Such a treat to see this show finally make it to the UK as part of London International Mime Festival 2015. A beautiful work, full of rich images and dreamy sounds that resound long after the very last veil is pulled across the dogugaeshi screen.

Knights of the Invisible: Black Regent

Iona Kewney is awesome – there’s no denying it. Her physical, visceral, shamanic performance is an extraordinary blend of contemporary circus and radical dance – it is no surprise to learn that she trained at the legendary School for New Dance Development in Amsterdam, before moving on to Cirkuspiloterna in Sweden. She is a contortionist, and then some – her ludicrously supple and bendy body twisting into unbelievable shapes. In one early section of the show, she remains on her hands for so long – her gangly legs waving in the air and weaving around her torso into ever more convoluted shapes – that we start to believe that the human body is supposed to be this way up. At other points in the show she seems to become a bouncing frog, or a foal finding its feet, or a caterpillar morphing into a cocoon; and then again, she’s human – a human in a state of trance, or perhaps in the throes of a fit: shaking, twitching, her breath coming hard and fast, her head tossed from side-to-side, her face obscured by her hair. Not since I first saw Marcella Soltan of Russia’s BlackSkyWhite have I felt so impressed by the twisted shapes a human body can make. And she has muscles in places I didn’t even know you could have muscles…

This talented performer also has a background in visual art (a graduate of Duncan of Jordanstone art school in her native Scotland, and a veteran of the National Review of Live Art), which shows in the scenography of the piece, and the animation of the physical environment through both light and physical action. Objects take on totemic, fetishist values – a stack of cardboard boxes dived through, worn, kicked over. Dangling lace curtains that become a kind of bridal veil cum burqa, both concealing and revealing. A hanging rope is toyed with as much as it is used in any sort of regular circus manner: an ominous suggestion of execution or suicide.

In Black Regent, Kewney is partnered with musician Joseph Quimby (an ongoing artistic relationship established in 2010). Their physical differences are played upon throughout the piece, which starts magnificently with the big, burly, bare-chested Quimby bursting through a door at the back of the stage carrying the limp, lanky Kewney in his arms, echoes of King Kong and every other Beauty and the Beast story you’ve ever heard or seen. Later, he rocks her tenderly on a kind of hammock-swing placed below his music station, and in one rare moment of role-reversal, she tows him across the stage on a little wheeled trolley – his big form resplendent in a kitsch pink cloak (eat your heart out, Rick Wakeman). I would have welcomed a bit more subversion of the big-guy tiny-girl dynamic – she’s twitching at his feet or leaning on his chest too many times for my liking.

As for the music: mostly it is a little too Midi-synth-dominated for me – I was somehow expecting something rather more radical than the laptop-musician symphonic compositions that abound – but this a personal taste thing: he is no doubt a talented composer, and there are some sections that I love, usually the parts where synth melody is less important and a low drone dominates, or a stomach-churning drum and bass beat pulses. What I especially like is Quimby’s voice – a high, tender, almost falsetto voice that is a surprise coming from such a big man. A voice that, heavy on the echo and reverb, reminds me strongly of Icelandic group Sigur Ros.

So much to admire; so many amazing images; such a relentless physical performance that leaves you shell-shocked. Yet there are reservations. It’s an interesting combination of artists, and there is complicity and exchange onstage, but I don’t feel that this is an absolutely symbiotic musician-and-dancer relationship of the strength, say, of Spitfire Company’s One Step Before the Fall, seen at London International Mime Festival 2014. Despite the ongoing collaboration of the two performers, Black Regent feels somehow unfinished, unresolved, a work-in-progress. But maybe that’s what it is – an ongoing collaboration, an ongoing process. And perhaps that is more than enough. They are certainly a compelling couple, and this a show filled with images that will resonate for a long time to come.

At it Again!

Dorothy Max Prior meets Joan and Barry Grantham – purveyors of Eccentric Dance and Popular Theatre…

So here we are at Jacksons Lane, North London. At it again. A motley crew of professional actors and dancers of all sorts, and amateur enthusiasts of varying levels of ability and experience, all whiling away the afternoon doing soft shoe shuffles and high kicks, and channelling the spirit of Laurel and Hardy, Snake-hips Johnson, and Little Titch. We are learning steps with exotic names: the ‘Cup and Saucers’ and the ‘Knives and Forks’; the ‘Scissors’ and the ‘Suzie Q’. Our teacher is Eccentric Dance expert Barry Grantham, whose sprightliness and energy defies the decades that he has been doing this, and we are accompanied on the piano by the wonderful Joan Grantham (aka ‘Joanie, in whom the muses nine combine’ as Barry calls her in the dedication in his book, Playing Commedia).

Later in the afternoon, the ante is upped as we learn the double-act choreography for Me and My Shadow, and attempt to emulate the legendary Wilson, Keppel and Betty’s Egyptian Sand Dance. There’s a bit of singing too as we have a bash at Harry Champion’s Any Old Iron, a classic Music Hall song-and-dance number.

Joan and Barry Grantham working with Tweedy the Clown

After the class, I’m invited back to Joan and Barry’s delightful little flat in Pimlico. We talk for many an hour, accompanied by the rattle of tea cups and the munching of fairy cakes. The talk is of cabbages and kings and sealing wax and string – and of course about all the things that Joan and Barry have performed, taught, and championed over the decades: Eccentric Dance, Mime, Music Hall, Variety, Commedia dell’ Arte.

We talk, for example, of the difference between Music Hall and Variety. Music Hall came first, says Barry – late 19^th to early 20^th century – and is characterised by the ‘non-theatre’ set-up of cabaret style small tables and chairs, whilst Variety was performed in regular, proscenium arch theatres. ‘Darling, they had waiters serving beer and hot pies right through the performance!’ says Joan enthusiastically, reflecting on the informal atmosphere of the Music Hall. This was before their time, but they have a direct line to the Music Hall tradition, both through family connections and through their friendships with older colleagues in the entertainment business who made the transition from Music Hall to Variety.

Barry’s maternal grandfather, Fred Bushell, worked the Halls as a singer of comic songs. Although this was all before his time, his Granddad having died when he was a baby, Barry was brought up on stories of Fred running from one venue to another to fit in three or four gigs a night. When he retired, he opened an East End oyster bar: ‘And like everyone else who ran an oyster bar at that time, he always swore that their establishment was patronised by Edward VII and Lillie Langtry,’ says Barry. His parents were actors, meeting during a performance of The Merry Wives of Windsor. His father performed as Pierrot in a Commedia-inspired production (a revival of a play by Laurence Housman called Prunella; or Love in a Dutch Garden), and Barry himself was initiated into the theatre arts at a tender age, creating a mime scenario under the coaching of his father: ‘Really, a Marcel Marceau type thing – about Pierrot waiting for a letter… All very French, rather than Italian.’ By the age of 12, he was not only performing but also teaching at his mother’s ballet school.

At the age of 15 – ‘I had to pretend I was 16 to get the job’, he says – Barry was a very promising young dancer, who had just joined the cast of The Song of Norway, on at the Palace Theatre, Cambridge Circus, at the heart of London’s West End. ‘I came running on in my little Norwegian trousers – rum tum tum ta! – and I saw this rather beautiful girl – very beautiful girl – dancing with a pillow.’ The girl was Joan. And what was her reaction to the new boy? ‘Well,’ says Joan, ‘I do remember he had very nice legs.’

Although they didn’t become an ‘item’ immediately, it was the start of a lifelong relationship of shared work, friendship and love. Joan is a dancer, musician, and comedienne, coming from what she describes as an ordinary family (albeit a ‘very musical family’), getting her love for the performing arts from ballet and music lessons, taking her exams and grades, and picking up work where she could. In those days, she was making her living both from playing the piano (especially music from classic Hollywood films, on which her knowledge has become encyclopaedic) and dancing – after the Song of Norway, she continued with a string of West End shows, including Scheherazade with the Lifar Company at the Cambridge Theatre. Barry, post Song of Norway, reaped the rewards of being that rare thing, a good male ballet dancer, much in demand on stage and film. (He appeared in Red Shoes with Moira Shearer, amongst other glory moments.)

Joan and Barry Grantham treading the boards

At first their paths crossed only intermittently, but after a year or two there came a point when they decided to throw in their lot together. ‘The marriage license being rather cheaper than paying a pianist,’ Barry says mischievously. So a union was formed – not just a marriage, but also a dance partnership. Barry invited Joan to join him in training with Idzikowski, who worked with Diaghilev. Joan introduced Barry to popular and stage-dance forms: ‘I’m a ballet boy,’ says Barry. ‘Joan taught me everything I know about musical theatre.’ Together, Joan and Barry created an act that they took to the Variety theatres – both of them dancing, Barry choreographing, and Joan composing the music. Their influences were many and various, from the Russian ballet to musical theatre via Hollywood film – especially films starring Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire (Joan’s personal favourite). They also acknowledge the debt they owe to their friends and colleagues, such as Paddy Stone, Beryl Kaye and Irving Davies (known collectively as Three’s Company – for whom Joan wrote the music). Davies in particular was a renowned dancer and choreographer who had worked with Gene Kelly, and who choreographed many West End shows, working right up to his death (in 2012) on his last production, Sean Foley and Hamish McColl’s tribute to Morecambe and Wise, The Play Wot I Wrote.

Like Irving Davies, Joan and Barry were mostly interested in taking dance into a new direction that embraced ballet, modern, and what used to be called ‘stage dance’. They forged routines that aimed to stretch the boundaries of dance whilst still being entertaining: ‘We were breaking all the rules of Variety – we didn’t conform to the patterns that most people expected,’ says Barry. Joan’s musical compositions, he tells me proudly, were complex and unusual, often causing consternation to the musicians when presented at band call. He recalls the occasion when one bandleader, Sid Caplin at Hackney Empire, said: ‘What’s this? My bass player – 48 bars rest time? I’m not paying him to have 48 bars rest time!’

What they weren’t too interested in, perhaps surprisingly, was the form that we now call Eccentric Dance. ‘ Not at all! It’s funny that I have ended up teaching all this stuff we were trying to get away from!’ says Barry, although he is quick to reassure me that he always had great admiration for the Variety legends he worked alongside, it was just that he and Joan had different ambitions. ‘We were of a new generation’ says Barry, and Joan adds ‘Things were changing, all those old acts weren’t going anywhere, and we wanted to go somewhere different, to stick with it and do things you wouldn’t expect.’

Although Joan and Barry entered Variety at a time that it was in decline, they worked with many of the genre’s legendary figures, including Max Miller (‘The Cheeky Chappie’), who they admire greatly, saying ‘he was wonderful to watch’, being particularly impressed by his ability to single out and relate one-on-one to members of the audience, even in a large theatre. This Barry sees as akin to his other great theatrical love, Commedia – the skill in engaging the audience and bringing them into the performance action that has come down the ages from Commedia dell’Arte to Music Hall, Pantomime, Variety and contemporary Street Theatre performance. ‘He liked to have the house lights up – he liked to see the audience – he had incredible skill in talking to the audience.’

Variety bills the couple played on also featured so-called Speciality Acts such as the wonderful Adagio dance troupe The Ganjou Brothers and Juanita; and aforementioned Wilson, Keppel and Betty, whose famous Cleopatra’s Nightmare was devised as a response to the interest in the finding of Tutankhamen’s tomb in the 1920s – and was still being danced in the 1950s. At least, Jack Wilson and Joe Keppel were still dancing it. Betty Knox had long retired from the dance, and indeed had a very successful second career as a journalist, famously reporting from the Nuremberg Trial for the Evening Standard. Her daughter Patsy became Betty Number Two, and when she left there were a whole succession of new Betties. No one is quite sure how many, but Richard Anthony Baker, author of ‘Old Time Variety – an illustrated history’ claims eight or nine. Barry isn’t sure what number Betty they were on at the time he performed alongside them – what he does know is that she couldn’t hold a light to the original Betty: ‘There’s a part where the boys go and get changed, and Betty does a Dance of the Seven Veils,’ he says. ‘I wasn’t very impressed. Not at all sexy…’

Joan and Barry Grantham ‘The Old Car’ Variety Act

How, then, did it happen that Joan and Barry ended up being known as Eccentric Dancers? A life treading the boards takes many twists and turns. As well as their ‘serious’ dance pieces, Joan and Barry created comic vignettes that were tributes to film stars such as Charlie Chaplin, and the Marx Brothers (‘Joan was Harpo and I was Groucho’). They toured on the Variety circuit for a few years – doing theatres all around the country, summer seasons, and pantomime – but this was the 1950s and Variety was in decline: theatres were becoming cinemas, TV was snapping up the singers and the comics. Joan and Barry moved into cabaret and cruise-ship work. Barry also became much in demand as a choreographer, working in theatres and with showgirl troupes (often alongside choreographer/producer and renowned Can Can teacher Marie de Vere, whose comment on his work was: ‘You’re very good, but you’ll have to shift yourself’ – the expectation was for him to get four routines made a day!)

Somewhere along the way, word got out that Barry had a background in Variety, and that he knew (and had learnt from) many of the legendary comic and character dancers of the day, and so it was only a matter of time before the demand to teach the classic routines came his way. This was many decades before the advent of DVDs and YouTube, both now an invaluable source for studying vintage dance routines. Then, if you wanted to learn, say, ‘At The Ball’ by Laurel and Hardy, there was nowhere to crib from; you needed to find someone who knew it. Step up, Barry Grantham!

But there is more to life than Eccentric Dancing, and Barry is also a renowned expert in both classic Commedia dell’Arte and its contemporary successor, Commedia. That childhood role of Pierrot was reprised many times, with Barry also embracing Harlequin – and eventually all the Masks (as Commedia characters are called, regardless of whether they are actual masked characters or not). Traditionally a performer might spend his whole career portraying a single Mask but Barry is more interested in seeing how each character feels under the mask and at some point has worked on, and in, most of the famous one. Indeed, he and Joan have a show called Harlequin Unmasked in which they explore the whole gamut. His interest in Commedia burgeoned after the demise of the Variety days. He saw the renowned Piccolo Theatre from Milan (‘inspiring, incredible,’ says Barry), performing Servant of Two Masters – Carlo Goldoni’s fully scripted play, written in protest at the poor standard of improvisation to which the Commedia dell’Arte of the day had sunk – a perennial comic theatre favourite that recently re-surfaced as the National Theatre production One Man, Two Guvnors (currently touring the UK). His early interest in the form thus piqued, he took himself to Italy to study with the masters of the form, and read anything he could find about Commedia dell’Arte, forging an intensive education for himself.

Barry and Joan Grantham: Commedia dell’Arte

So we are now in the late 1960s and 1970s, and Barry (with his renewed interest in and growing knowledge of) Commedia dell’Arte is invited to teach workshops in Mime, Improvisation, and Commedia at the Oval House Theatre and the City Lit – both hot-spots of alternative theatrical activity in the emerging scene of agit-prop and devised theatre. Alongside the experiments in theatre form coming from the likes of The People Show, Lumiere and Son, and Crystal Theatre of the Saint, there was a parallel interest developing in classic forms, including: Mime, Acrobatics, Clown and Commedia dell’Arte. More than mere revival, re-interpretation and integration into new ways of working were the order of the day. By the late 1970s, an enterprising young theatre producer called Joseph Seelig had started the London International Mime Festival. Physical, visual, ‘total theatre’ was breaking through – not as a replacement of the literary tradition led by authors, but honouring actor-led theatre forms as a parallel force.

By the early 1980s a whole new generation of physical theatre-makers had arrived on the scene. Over the 1980s and 1990s, and beyond into the 21^st century, emerging artists working in the burgeoning artforms of physical and devised theatre, street theatre and contemporary circus were looking to experts in the non-literary performance traditions for general guidance and (even more vital) hard-core skills. Barry Grantham thus found himself much in demand teaching mime, movement and Commedia techniques to companies such as Zippos Circus, No Fit State, Told by an Idiot, and Gifford’s Circus. In more recent years, as physical theatre and circus entered the mainstream, he found himself working in opera (at Glyndebourne and at the Royal Opera House), for the Royal Shakespeare Company, and for numerous other notable establishments across the UK and Europe.

Barry defines contemporary Commedia, as distinct from the classic Commedia dell’Arte, as a form ‘not restricted to either stereotypes of doubtful relevance or male-dominated orientations’ (this quote taken from the introduction to his excellent book Playing Commedia). He sees it as a theatre of allusion, not illusion, and notes five characteristics of Commedia. It is a non-naturalistic form in which the physical/visual elements are at least equal to the verbal. It makes use of the multiple skills of the performer, incorporating spoken text, dance, mime, acrobatics, and music. It may be improvised but incorporates learnt set pieces. It may feature ‘permanent’ characters, traditional or new. And it may use face masks – in traditional Commedia dell’Arte, this would be the distinctive half-masks, often beautifully crafted in leather. In Playing Commedia, Barry discusses the mask as used in more recent performance. He talks of the creation of an ‘identifiable image’ and cites Charlie Chaplin’s Little Tramp character –replete with bowler hat and the little moustache – as a Mask: ‘A clearly recognised individual who raises certain expectations in the audience.’

Joan and Barry Grantham: Ragtime Dance

Concurrent to the teaching work, the Commedia troupe Intention (founded and led by Barry) has performed extensively, and Joan and Barry continue to present their legendary classes, workshops, performances and lecture-demonstrations on Eccentric Dance, Music Hall and Commedia. They have two touring shows: Working the Halls, which tells true-life stories from the world of Music Hall and Variety, and the aforementioned Harlequin Unmasked.

This may well be a good moment to reflect on the fact that Barry sees little distinction between his work with Eccentric Dance and Variety, and his work with Commedia. ‘It’s all one,’ he says, meaning that it is all part of the same great whole thing that is popular theatre. In this, there is an analogy (which we discuss keenly) with the Balinese approach to art-making, in which everyone is expected to dance, sing, puppeteer, and perform the Topeng masks. As Antonin Artaud, Eugenio Barba, and Peter Brook have all pointed out, the divide between ‘actor’ and ‘dancer’ is less likely in Eastern traditions. The same can be said for the Commedia dell’Arte – traditionally a ‘commedian’ would be expected to competently dance, deliver text, sing, and play at least one musical instrument.

The conversation turns to more recent examples of multi-tasking performers, this prompting a discussion on the crossover between Variety and what some people call ‘legitimate theatre’. I tell Joan and Barry that I was lucky enough to have seen Max Wall in John Osborne’s The Entertainer at Greenwich Theatre: ‘So often Variety performers like Max Wall and Beryl Reid seem to have a greater depth than the so-called real actors,’ says Barry.

For those of us lucky enough to have experienced the Granthams’ teaching first-hand, we know that we are learning in a way that has been part of theatre history for many hundreds of years. Physical warm-ups that emphasise the isolation of body parts; tricks and turns and set pieces passed down from one generation of performers to another; comic dances that play on each performer’s unique appearance and abilities; an awareness of staging and relationship to audience. Long, long before the advent of university degrees in theatre, dance and circus, this was what you learnt and how you learnt it – from the horse’s mouth (or hooves, perhaps) – and what we learn from Joan and Barry is invaluable.

When I ask Barry what his fondest moment is from all these experiences over all these years, he says ‘Doing the class this afternoon!’ Which is slightly tongue-in-cheek, but there is a seriousness here. He’s more interested in what’s happening now, in the present moment, than in anything that has happened in the past. And he’s not done yet: there are unfulfilled ambitions: ‘It’s not really about what was – I’ve got something to do. I have a vision of Commedia and I have never achieved it. I don’t mean that it’s a total re-creation, but it’s what could be: masked work with brilliant actors, dancers, musicians. That’s what I’ve got to do – and I haven’t got much time to do it. You never know…’

So there’s an artist for you – ‘I’m happy, but still striving,’ he says.

Constantly on the move, looking to the next challenge.

We wait with baited breath to see what the next instalment of the very full and eventful theatrical lives of Joan and Barry Grantham bring forth.

More about Joan and Barry Grantham:

For further information on Joan and Barry Grantham see the World of Commedia website http://www.worldofcommedia.co.uk/

The Eccentric Dance class continues at Jacksons Lane on Tuesdays 2pm to 4pm, starting 13 January 2015 http://www.jacksonslane.org.uk/

Two weekend intensives in early 2015 at Sands Film Studios, Rotherhithe, London: http://www.sandsfilms.co.uk/Sands_Films_Studio/Contact_%26_Address.html

Music Hall Techniques: 23–25 January 2015

Commedia – A Technique for Comedy: 30 January –2 February 2015

Each weekend comprising an evening slide-talk on the Friday, followed by a two-day workshop.

23 January slide-talk: Working the Halls

30 January slide-talk: Commedia – Its History and Application

Bookings and further information: email gbarry.grantham@ntlworld.com or tel 0207 798 8246

Barry Grantham will be teaching Commedia dell’Arte at the Chalemie Easter School, Oxford, 28 March – 2 April 2015 http://www.chalemie.co.uk/

Books by Barry Grantham:

Playing Commedia – A Training Guide to Commedia Techniques (NHB, 2000)

Commedia Plays – Scenarios, Scripts, Lazzi (NHB, 2006)

Both available to purchase from www.nickhernbooks.co.uk

Dorothy Max Prior is a choreographer, director and dance teacher, and co-director of The Ragroof Players www.ragroofplayers.co.uk and also runs projects using popular dance and theatre under the name Dorothy’s Shoes. Her five-day residential course Eccentric, Popular and Comic Dance for Actors and Clowns is now booking for June 2015 at The Actors Space in Barcelona. Email aureliusproductions@gmail.com for further information.

1927: The Golem

Photo Will Sanders

‘We live in a world where people want for nothing, we are safe and secure, we are progressive, we believe in the new…’

For your pleasure, at their leisure, 1927 present a brave new world: a Chrome-Crome-Yellow world in which automation liberates us from mundane tasks, turning us all into middle managers; a world that engulfs and digests rebellious youth culture and regurgitates it as pop fodder; a world that purports to offer you anything you could possibly desire. Yet when you walk down the high street you realise that all the shops all look the same, sell the same stuff, and are now owned by the same multinational conglomerate. Say yes to progress!

So, what is it? Is it live animation? Is it visual performance? A new type of music theatre? That and more, so much more – this is hard-hitting political theatre wrapped up so prettily, served with such wryly humorous irony, that it is only afterwards that you really appreciate the take-no-prisoners satirical blow of the narrative. Slave or master? Who controls whom? Move with the times or be left behind!

Thus, the story of Robert Robertson (a boy ‘smelling of unwashed hair and mathematics’ and ‘always picked last at rounders’) who morphs from IT underling to – gasp! – supervisor. Along the way, he gets himself a Golem. In a new take on the centuries-old Golem myth, the lumbering man-of-clay, created to mindlessly serve his human master, fails to ‘sleep the dreamless sleep of clay’ and mutates, Pokemon style, into ever smaller and snazzier action-figure forms – taking the world around him with him in an orgy of mechanising, streamlining and globalisation. Granny no longer has knitting needles, but pulls a lumbering Knit-o-Matic machine around with her. The beautifully drawn (in both senses of the word) high street goes from a gloriously tatty jumble of butchers and bakers, bridal boutiques, and old-geezer pubs with dodgy singers, to a uniform row of Go! enterprises.

Those who know and love the company’s work will welcome the fact that The Golem, their third theatre show (with an additional opera collaboration along the way), is on a continuum – ever upward, its own wonderful self, but building on familiar territory. The form, first presented in the Total Theatre Award winning debut Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, and developed in The Animals and Children Took to the Streets, is intact: crisp and clever writing and direction by Suzanne Andrade; extraordinarily detailed graphics and animation from Paul Barritt; beautifully composed and played music by Lillian Henley; fantastic physical performance and assistant direction and design from Esme Appleton (here playing Robert’s sister Annie, narrator of this cautionary tale).

In each lovingly crafted and painstakingly developed new show in their repertoire, 1927 up the ante. The Golem sees the addition of a second musician-actor, Will Close. His brash big-beat drum-kit playing adds a whole new dimension to the soundscape, working beautifully with Lillian Henley’s piano. The creation of punk band Annie and the Underdogs as a central motif and metaphor for the show is a masterstroke. With a similar exhilarating shriek and thrash to the legendary X-Ray Spex the band belt out songs that would ‘ruin your Christmas’. By the end of the show they’ve become an identikit jumpsuit-clad New Wave synth outfit that look for all the world like a Poundland version of Kraftwerk. We are the robots!

This third show also sees Suzanne Andrade choosing to stay off-stage. The cast is augmented by Little Bulb’s highly talented actor-musician Shamira Turner, who plays nerdy anti-hero Robert, and the dark-haired nervously clipped-toned Rose Robinson who plays Robert’s would-be girlfriend Joy, doubling up deliciously as Granny Robertson. Both actors rise to the challenge of multiple characters and the meticulous interplay with the film, giving excellent performances and fitting very well into the 1927 world.

The visual joust between 2D and 3D is ever-tighter, with Barritt handing over the controls to production manager and operator Helen Mugridge, the whole show running live cue-to-cue. The film animation is magnificent: the screen work is enhanced by use of stop-frame animation – Golem 1 is an actual animated clay figure, a bit like Morph but bigger and with a willy. And I know I’ll have to see the show again just for the delight of revisiting all the wonderful visual details – street signs whizzing by, people popping up through windows and doorways, buzzing insects on-screen swatted by real-live actors. A favourite recurring moment sees a moustache on the portrait of the dearly departed Granddad Robertson turning into a caterpillar and crawling off when brushed with a duster. There is also some lovely live animation: in one clever scene the hapless Joy is discarded by Robert – who has been encouraged by the Golem to find himself a newer, younger model – leading to the Court-o-Matic speed-dating array of gorgeous girls presenting as humanette-style human heads atop of cardboard-cut frocks in a fast-moving fashion parade of desirability.

In what is a magnificent achievement there are some small flaws, mostly to do with pacing. An outside eye could perhaps have persuaded the director to lob 10 minutes or so off of the ‘Golem 2’ section, which slumps a little. It’s currently a brilliant 90-minute show that could be a near-perfect 70-minute show.

1927 – now almost a decade old – has grown over the years into a far larger family than that four-person team that won so many awards at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2007. The list of credits on The Golem includes associate animator Derek Andrade, sound designer Laurence Owen, dramaturg Ben Francombe, and producer Jo Crowley. And a word of praise here for costume designer Sarah Munroe (from The Insect Circus) who has done a sterling job.

Like its two predecessors, 1927’s The Golem will no doubt tour the world with enormous success. It is supremely satisfying to see an artist-led company creating such breathtakingly beautiful and accomplished multi-discipline ’total theatre’ work achieve the success they deserve. The future is here!