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

Raphaëlle Boitel: L’Oublié(e)

L’Oublié(e) is a stunningly beautiful piece – a mostly monochrome series of moving pictures that blends contemporary circus, dance and word-free visual theatre, all accompanied by a highly inventive lighting design, and an eclectic soundspace that merges ambient electronica with echoing snatches of old-world waltzes, tangos and torch-songs. The 1930s classic Dream a Little Dream of Me is a recurring theme – incorporated into the soundtrack, and performed live, in a quavering little voice.

In this quasi-cinematic work, breathtakingly beautiful moving pictures follow one after the other as disorientating and surreal dream images emerge and dissolve from the darkness, often lit photographically with intense, focused white light. Sumptuous fabrics play a big part in the scenography – long fluttering curtains and veils waft and swing and are swung from. Faces and bodies are framed with light, and dissolve into a flickering darkness, like the fading stars of silent cinema. And here again comes the refrain ‘ dream a little dream of me’. But as the White Queen says to Alice: Who is dreaming whom?

As for form: Raphaëlle Boitel – multi-talented and versatile in every sense of the word – is principally a contortionist, so this circus art naturally features strongly, alongside aerial dance using silks and bungees (often in new and inventive ways). Wry humour has always been in evidence in her work, and here this is developed with a new maturity. The circus / aerial dance work is incorporated effortlessly into the work, acting as rich metaphor: a body levitates above a table, then seems to shrug off its mortal coil; a woman on a big band of elastic runs forward and is pulled back time and again, like a modern-day Sisyphus; a doctor examines a patient whose limbs refuse to stay where they should be.

Boitel’s previous work within contemporary circus-theatre is there to see in L’Oublié(e), her first major work as auteur/director. The time spent with James Thierrée’s Compagnie du Hanneton (she starred in both Junebug and La Veillee des Abysses) has borne fruit, revealed in the witty play with furniture (tables and chairs, in this instance) and furnishings; the air of surreal humour that pervades so many of the images; and an ongoing interest in the animus/anima theme – the all-consuming desire for male and female to re-unite, to find their other half that makes them whole. But to what extent this is James Thierrée’s influence is hard to say, as we could also see it as a shared visual and physical language that she, James and her brother Camille (also a renowned circus artist) developed together in all the years that they co-devised and presented work together.

There are other influences and predecessors in evidence: a touch of Pina Bausch here, a nod to David Lynch there. A dash of Kate Bush – and a great big shovelful of Philippe Genty.

Narrative is not the most important aspect of this work, but there is one of sorts: at the start, we see a man is on a hospital bed, perhaps in a coma, or after a heart attack, and a shadow theatre scenario of attempts to resuscitate him. A woman has been waiting for him to wake up, and we are then plunged into a parallel world of hallucinations and fantastical situations. Whether this is inside her head or his – or both – we never know for sure. We don’t know who he is and what their relationship might be – although it appears to be a romantic one.

Throughout, archetypes of womanhood are explored: Romantic heroines in voluptuous white dresses are swept off their feet; black widows trail their trains across the floor; shrouded figures float high in the space, like lost angels. In one scene, we are presented with a triad of female forms, a merging of the three female characters that suggests, as the mythology would have it, that the legendary three aspects of Demeter – maidenhood, womanhood, and maturity – are all carried in any one woman.

If there’s a criticism of the piece, it is that the narrative set up at the beginning is never resolved. We move into the world of subconscious dreams and fantasies, but we are not taken out of it, back to the hospital. We can only presume that the artist shied away from any resolution – but dramaturgically the piece feels incomplete, as we are left floating in the depths of the dream.

Thematically, it would seem to be exploring the very nature of what it means to be alive, and the fragility of the balance between life and death. It seems to be asking: where does memory end and imagination begin? Is the life of our dreams as important as our waking moments? And what does it mean to be a spirit living inside a body? No answers are given to these metaphysical conundrums – but we leave feeling a whole lot of interesting questions have been posed.

Being There: BED by Bernadette Russell

Being There: one of an occasional series for Total Theatre Magazine in which an artist and a witness reflect on their different perspectives. Here, writer and performer Bernadette Russell and her first one-on-one audience member Dorothy Max Prior explore the debut outing for BED

Dorothy Max Prior writes:

Bernadette Russell’s new show – she of The People Show and The White Rabbit and 366 Acts of Kindness and whatever else – and I’m the first to experience it! This feels an honour even before anything has happened.

BED is a show for one person at a time and (in this incarnation, anyway) it happens in your home – in your bed. My bed, that is. First I wonder about a slight cheat: I have a study with a bed in that is my space – perhaps that’d be best. But as it happens, on the appointed day there’s a visiting circus girl staying in there, so my marital bedroom becomes the only option. Which feels slightly challenging, what with the overflowing laundry basket and heaps of books on the floor and paperwork on the desk…

‘Wear what you like, but I’ll be wearing PJs,’ says the text, when Bernadette is on her way. I take a bath, and get into my pyjamas. Oh Lord… She arrives with a great big suitcase and asks if she can have 10 minutes alone in my room. When I’m invited in, it’s no longer my familiar bedroom, it’s now a magical space. The piles of paper and laundry have been transformed into soft fairy hills with draped cloths, there are sparkly festoons of lights everywhere, slightly eery old dolls stare at me, and there’s the sound of tinkling music boxes. On the bedside table, candles burn, and there’s the smell of lavender on the pillow.

Bernadette tucks me in and sits next to me on the bed. She’s conducting research into dreams, and asks me lots of questions. Do I dream? Do I remember my dreams? Are my dreams the ‘washing laundry’ type of dreams that sort out the day before’s dilemmas, or fantastical adventures? I find it surprisingly difficult to answer – I realise that I often jump up quickly in the mornings and immediately forget my dreams. I promise her that I will take my time to save at least one for her. It’s a deal – signed, sealed and delivered. IOU one dream…,

Then there’s cocoa and biscuits, and I get to choose a bedtime story for myself from a list. I’m just about to choose Magic, when I find myself saying Beauty instead. It’s a week or two before my 60th birthday and the story told seems pertinent, as it is about the desperate desire for eternal youth and beauty at any cost – the traditional fairy tale image of Snow White’s stepmother preening herself in the glass transformed into a more contemporary tale of plastic surgery and Californian cocktail parties. There’s a touch of Dorian Gray in there. Lemons feature heavily.

It’s all over far too soon. The candles are snuffed out. The dolls and lights and wind-up music boxes are packed away. Bernadette leaves. That night, I dream of going to the circus – which in my case is a fairly everyday occurrence – but this circus features a terrible beast-man in a sideshow display and a tiny doll-like girl that I know have both arrived there from Bernadette, one way or another. I wake with the taste of lemons in my mouth, and reach for my pen. There is also a special gift that has been left behind on the bedside. A candle and a spell… I wonder what the Magic story would have been?

The Bed is a delightful and enchanting experience – a return to the pleasures of childhood but with an adult awareness. I’m a sucker for anything that references fairy tales, and Bernadette Russell’s writings are firmly in the Angela Carter camp. I love her contemporary take on archetype and myth. Even on this first outing it is all working beautifully. If I put my critic’s hat on and attempt to think what could be better, I suppose I could say that there is a slight discrepancy between the performer’s persona in her two roles of researcher and storyteller – but I’m sure she’ll find her way with future performances. I also wonder if there is any way at all for the audience member not to witness the dismantling of the space. Perhaps she needs to be blindfolded or asked to close her eyes – or perhaps a torch is needed to take things down without bedroom lights going back on? These are small adjustments to be made to the form – but on its first outing, BED is most definitely a hit. You can tuck me in anytime, Bernadette!

Bernadette Russell writes:

This is the story behind BED, or rather a series of stories that fit inside each other like Russian Babushka dolls.

Three years ago I read the Truman Capote short story Master Misery whilst in bed with a very heavy cold. It’s about a man who buys dreams, often from people who have nothing else left to sell. It’s a romantic and melancholy story, perfect for a rainy autumn day. It never quite left me.

Two years ago I was asked to contribute something for a charity art auction. I make toys but I didn’t have any ready, so I put myself up for auction with an idea in mind of what that would mean. The auctioneer managed to raise £80 for me. I met the man who’d bought me at the bar, and explained what he’d won: that I’d write a story especially for him and read it to him in bed. I gave him my card, we went our separate ways.

A year later, I was invited to take part in Art Flea Stroud. They built me a bed on stilts and I watched people climb the rickety ladder, and read and chatted to strangers, sharing Baileys and cake with them all day. A drunk builder fell asleep cuddling one of my dolls, a woman cried on my shoulder, several people whispered ‘I shouldn’t be telling you this, but…’

All of these days jumbled together and assembled themselves into a plan to read stories to people in bed and to attempt to influence and then collect their dreams. I also wanted to explore the magic and wonder of theatre, and of stories, and of what happens to us when we sleep.

I put some notices up to see if anyone was interested: Dorothy Max Prior was one of the first to respond.

I packed a suitcase and set off to an address she’d texted to me the day before. Like a blind date, or a secret assignation, I went to visit this not-quite-stranger, pretty sure that Dorothy and I hadn’t spoken much before (and we definitely hadn’t shared a bed. I’d remember that.)

In my suitcase were my pyjamas, plus things to embellish her room a little: some lights, some scents, lots of music boxes, some very old dolls. I prepared a contract on my nana’s typewriter, to be signed by both parties: a story from me in exchange for a dream from her. Her dream (the first one she remembered after my visit) becomes inspiration for another story, to be read to someone else in the future.

When I arrived at her house in a taxi, her husband told me that Dorothy was already tucked up in bed. She left to give me a few minutes to change the room a little. It already smelt of roses, was filled with books and interesting objects. My strange collection fitted right in. I put on my pyjamas, invited her in and we sat up in bed and chatted.

The first part of the experience is an interview, partly inspired by Master Misery, and partly by Jungian and Freudian ideas about dreams, symbols and the subconscious, which I recorded as an audio file. Once contracts had been signed by both of us. Dorothy then chose from a simple list of headings which story she would like. She chose the theme of Beauty. I read and she listened. Woven into each story is a series of ‘magic words’: triggers to try to influence the subconscious. The stories I wrote for this project are dark and bloody and funny and strange.

After the story we drank the hot chocolate that I had prepared out of tiny cups, and ate biscuits that taste of roses: part holy communion, part midnight feast, and the room fell into silence as the music box wound down.

I left her with a gift to open when I left: a wunderkammer containing a set of instructions and an invitation to suspend disbelief and to experiment with magic, to be accepted or not, and a few things hidden in her room to be found later or never, no matter which. I caught another taxi and was away. I felt incredibly calm and happy. I could smell roses and I could taste them, that made me smile.

It’s a tender experience, to share a bed and a story with a stranger. When you’re tucked in, you can’t help but soften your voice and feel empathy with the person next to you. It’s both comforting and disconcerting, it’s the most innocent of one-night stands. I think it requires great generosity and a sense of adventure from the listener, and Dorothy was open and funny too, which helped. I kept thinking about what it’ d be like when we bumped into each other again, it felt like we became friends in the hour we spent together.

A few days later, I received a letter in the post from her with details of her dream. That night I started writing a story inspired by it, and next Sunday I’m going to visit someone else in their bed (a real total stranger this time, which will probably be an entirely different experience). I’ll carry on collecting dreams, and sharing and telling stories, and I will allow this experiment to develop as it will. I’ve plans to return to Brighton for the whole festival next year, but for now I am happy to carry on bed-hopping with my suitcase of lights, filing dreams away and telling stories.

Footnote:

BED is an on-going experiment, and Bernadette Russell has now found a sleep expert from the Wellcome Trust interested in working with her.

If you’re interested in a visit, please email: bernadette@thewhiterabbit.org.uk and put BED in the subject line.

WildWorks: Wolf’s Child

Best of luck, says the man with the shotgun. Keep to the middle of the path. Listen to the woods. Follow the crows.

And off we go, through the gates, to sit in a big circle under a grand old tree, round the charcoaled remnants of a fire. ‘Sorrow’ caws my crow, who is wearing a black cape and carrying a distressed – almost filigreed – umbrella. My crow only seems to know one word: Sorrow. Others call out other words: Myrrh, Bones, Funeral, Dust. It’s a story in single-word exclamations. What’s the collective name for crows, I find myself thinking. A convocation? A charm? A chattering? A mustering? ‘Murder!’ cries a crow. Ah yes, murder… And here’s the evidence: a bundle of bones emerging from the charred wood are formed into a skeleton shape (of what is hard to tell) and puppeteered through the space, a sombre wake accompanied by a crow choir. Follow, follow, follow the crow.

Me and Sorrow and a herd of two-legged walkie-talkies tramp through the meadows and over to the manicured lawn in front of Felbrigg Hall, a gorgeous National Trust-managed stately home looking resplendent in the evening light. On the lawn are the Maids: clean, white, starched, straight-backed. A rod for your back is taken literally. Good little girls who cultivate roses and hold on to their noses. Inside the forest, they sing, is the garden. Inside the garden, our Home. Inside the Home, our Mother. And here she is! A white-haired, proud woman in jodhpurs riding upon a (real!) horse, galloping into the paddock. The girls carry on brushing the lawn until called to present themselves to Mother: Lavender, Willow, Hazel, Larch, Rowan. Rowan is a little gawky and awkward, but it is she who is entrusted with a gun – ‘Rowan with a rifle!’ mock the crows – and as the sun sets and the howl of the wolves is heard in the distance, sent out to hunt the beast.

And off we go again, into the woods, past the woodcutter carving meticulously sculpted rabbits and owls from lumps of wood, to another glade. Rowan is mute, and communicates with the shake of a little bell. (Clever! Her wordlessness aligns her with the beasts, and of course we can hear her working her way through the woods with her gun, even when we can’t see her.) She’s frightened but she finds her courage. She loses her fear – and loses her heart (and virginity) to a man-beast…

Stories of humans who couple with animals are rife in mythology – horses, swans, bears, and of course wolves feature in tales told by Ancient Greeks, Native Americans, and Celts. Further, stories that feature humans changed into beasts (and sometimes back again) are a mainstay of our fairy tale traditions. These myths and stories of people who are part-human and part-beast retain their resonance for us because they ask us to consider what it is that makes us human – and to ask if we can ever leave the beast inside us behind.

And indeed, these seem the very questions driving WildWorks, who plunder all the usual sources in their story of this Wolf’s Child – there are touches of Grimms and Perrault and Greek Myth and trickster tales, and the myth of Callisto (changed from nymph to bear) is cited as an inspiration by WildWorks’ director Bill Mitchell – but this mixed and mulched with research emerging from a collaboration with renowned animal behaviour specialists such as Shaun Ellis (who kept and lived with a pack of wolves in Devon), and the late Dr Chris Seeley, expert on bear behaviour.

The binary divide between inside and out – architecture versus wilderness, brick buildings versus cathedrals of trees – is represented by Mother and the Maids on the one hand, and the wolf pack on the other. The crows seem to sit in between – creatures who mix with ‘featherbrained’ humans, mocking our follies. Perhaps inevitably, the ‘civilised’ and controlled world of Mother reveals itself to be the most savage; and the ‘savage’ world of the wolves a warm and loving collective society. The young wolf child Thorn (as named by Mother, because she’s a bit prickly) is seen to be living an idyllic life of cuddles and tumbling games with the wolves; and by contrast is in a constant state of agitation when with the Maids. Sit down like a proper little girl, Thorn is admonished as she runs hither and thither. Use your words, no snarling or biting. In the distance, the wolves howl, calling her home (echoing Shaun Ellis’s story cited in the programme notes – when he left, his wolf family howled for him for two and a half days).

The crows are headed up by Kafka (Steve Jacobs) and Kaz (Sophie Ellerby) who make excellent guides – the mix of clowning, interactive play, and storytelling is perfectly-pitched. Kaz is besotted with glitzy things worn by audience members (a leopardskin coat is lusted after, blue hair and furry hats admired) and runs a continuous running commentary on our appearance and behaviour. Kafka is rather more philosophical – offering wry reflections on the unfolding drama, taking us out of the action then leading us back in, as a good storyteller does. (Both Bettelheim and Steiner have a lot to say about the role of the storyteller as an intermediary in frightening stories – not playing down the horror, but pulling us back from the tale into our own present-moment reality.)

All the cast is strong – Sue Hill’s Mother is a force to be reckoned with, her world replete with icons and symbols from an array of tales and myths representing ‘civilisation’: the bridled horse, the looking-glass, the white wrought-iron garden bench. Rowan is played by Kyla Goodey, who ably captures the emotional turmoil of her journey into the wild, embracing the beast (literally and metaphorically), maturing from maiden to motherhood, and dealing with the pain of loss. The moment where she finds her voice is heartbreaking. Morgan Val Baker’s Man Beast is played with a lovely mix of Peter Pan cheekiness and wild bravado – the use of aerial dance for the love scene between him and Rowan (showing their mis-matched abilities as tree-climbers and swingers) is very beautifully choreographed. In fact, it can be said that the things that defeat most theatre-makers – sex, birthing, and death – are all done with great skill by WildWorks in Wolf’s Child.

Throughout the whole promenade – almost two hours – we always feel held and supported. Every scene is staged in a way (often in the round) that makes for good sightlines wherever you sit or stand. The lighting is beautiful: small flares lighting the paths; glades animated subtly by glowing red or amber lights, or washed more theatrically in a gorgeous pure blue. When we return to Mother’s home after dark, the stark, filmic white lights turn the maids’ virginal white dresses into glowing beacons of purity against the background of the meadows and woods. The passages in between these static scenes are enlivened by the crows commentary, and by the travelling crow choir – four excellent singers (Victoria Abbott, Seamas Carey, Jude Page, and Saffron Paffron). Path-trailer crows (Sorrow et al) have obviously been properly schooled into how to move an audience around without unnecessary over-stewarding.

Towards the end of the show, we walk in silence down a particularly rocky path in almost pitch darkness. It’s a beautiful moment – embracing the darkness, listening to the woods, feeling the night air on our faces. Feeling a little nervous, perhaps – but always knowing we are in safe hands.

Wolf’s Child is a wonderful example of genuinely site-responsive theatre: it is a pleasure to be in the hands of a company who are so skilled in the art of storytelling, and who truly understand how to work in, and with, the landscape. It has been created by WildWorks in partnership with the National Trust and Norfolk & Norwich Festival, who in recent years have commissioned and programmed many extraordinary works within the Norfolk landscape. A truly inspirational commission for a gift of a site, and a very special experience that takes ‘outdoor arts’ onto another level.

Odd Comic: My Champion Heartache

Oh, look! Look at their little feet! And their sweet little faces – look at those markings! And look at that one – his little whiskers!

Odd Comic’s Dot Howard and Holly Bodmer come towards us, making ‘here kitty kitty’ noises. It’s one of many moments in which we’re cast as the pets. Taking this to its ludicrous conclusion, a cardboard box is brought in. Ah, one of them has brought us a little present, they say, listing the contents of the box that they (but not we) can see. A crisp packet. A bus pass. A hub cap. A breast pump. ‘That’s not hunting!’ Holly says to us sternly.

At other times, they are the pets. For example when Dot runs round and round the space while a voiceover describes a dog tearing round the park with unbound glee. I like a dog, says the man’s voice. Dogs – unlike people – have no ‘edge’. Later, the old novelty pop song, My Dog Loves Your Dog, rings out. Oh and there are little black screwed-up bags – dog poo bags, allegedly – littering the stage. When one of these black plastic balls is thrown into the audience we all flinch and squeal in horror, such is the power of theatre.

Then again, there are the times when none of us are the pets, and the stage is in semi-darkness, better for us to focus on the verbatim texts, recorded at Norwich Hospital with patients temporarily separated from their pets. A woman with a no-nonsense voice tells us about her goldfish, who keeps jumping out of his bowl. She tells us that she wipes him down with kitchen towel, runs him under the tap, and pops him back in. Like many of the interviewed patients, she’s a stroke victim. When she collapsed at home, falling over and hitting her head, she almost knocked over the goldfish bowl. It’s funny and sad and beautiful all at once.

Dot and Holly very clearly like lists. There’s a great long litany of pet names: Holly’s are mostly tasty and cute. Popcorn. Apple. Mango. Dot’s are more – esoteric. Edgar. Allan. Poe. Or then again Sophie. Ellis. Bextor. Sophie Ellis Bextor! My ears prick up – we had a kitten called Sophie Ellis Bextor. And one called Sugarbabe. And one called Gareth Gates. Their mother is called Eric (after Eric Cantona).

But back to the show: did I mention the real live tortoise? There’s a real live tortoise. And a plant in a dog bowl. Fake fur. An empty fish tank. More stories. Lost hamsters. Things that bite. Things that die. One of them – Holly, I think – tells us a story of burying something-or-other in a Tampax box to the tune of Kumbaya My Lord.

This, on the surface, is a young and vibrant theatre – it’s an easy watch, but there is maturity to the work that shines through. It is beautifully structured, it uses the recordings with hospital patients in a respectful way, and Odd Comic are not afraid to use silence, darkness, pauses in the action. It is funny – comedy sketch show type funny at points – but it is also a poignant and heartwarming theatrical reflection on the importance that pets play in many people’s lives.

Out in the foyer at the delightful Norwich Arts Centre (where the show has been developed), there’s a small art exhibition: big word-pictures that announce The Nature of a Dog is a Dog, or You Get Worn With Losing Them; an empty blue plastic dog bowl; a large, hyper-real photo of a fishbowl sat by a river; an unoccupied grey plastic hutch. All part of the multi-faceted arts project that is My Champion Heartache.

The show and exhibition are presented at Norfolk & Norwich Festival under the auspices of Norwich Arts Centre’s [Live] Art Club, with appearances on other nights by Deborah Pearson, Kim Noble, Luke Wright, Richard DeDomenici, and The Neutrinos.

Claudia Molitor/Dan Ayling: Vast White Stillness

A woman weeps. There is a piano and a pile of firewood and a video projection of trees in the snow. The woman leads us to another space. The woman weeps some more and sighs. The woman sighs some more and takes books from a trunk and clutches them to her chest, then spreads them on the floor. There are candles. Lots of candles, all over the place – which is a bit worrying in a warren of low-ceilinged wine cellars filled with wood and paper. We go to a third cellar, where is a slide-show – images of trees in the snow. We go back to the first room. There is snow on the ground. Fake snow. The woman sighs. A lot. The woman sprinkles the snow over the tinder-wood. It is fake snow so it does not melt. The End.

Context is everything. As a piece of site-responsive theatre, this piece fails on very many levels. There seems to be no relationship between the site and the content. And shuffling an audience between three cramped chambers, where people are uncomfortably trying to see what is happening (not a lot) is not really an ‘immersive journey’. A director is credited, which seems to confer the right of the reviewer to assess it as theatre. And it features a performer – albeit one to whom the director should have applied the maxim ‘No Acting Required’ at every available opportunity.

But, on the other hand, the artist Claudia Molitor is predominantly a composer/sound artist and fine artist. If I’d seen this work presented in a gallery I might have far more sympathy toward the piece. The soundscape, featuring piano, electronic composition, and German lieder, is beautiful. I like the use of slides, and the general aesthetic of the piece (barring the fake snow). If it was a fringe production by an emerging artist I’d say that it was an interesting piece that showed promise. But it has too many flaws for a work presented in a major international festival. And it is hard to understand who thought this was a good piece for a dank wine cellar below the Ship Hotel.