difficult
| stage present
Alix
in Wundergarten
By
François Pandolfo
Co-produced
with The Other Room and in association with Chapter Arts Centre
Cow
Barn, Underbelly Med Quad (Venue 302)
3-29
August 2016
After taking Cardiff by
storm, difficult | stage, resident
company of Cardiff’s pub theatre The
Other Room, bring their
hilariously bold and highly acclaimed brand of theatre and comedy to the
Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Alix in Wundergarten is a fully immersive
and unapologetically black and twisted satire set in the confines of a
radio-recording studio.
Alix In Wundergarten
is written by difficult|stage’s
François Pandolfo and was originally produced as part of The Other Room’s Blue Sky season in 2015; an entire season of work
curated by the theatre to give emerging and talented companies like
difficult|stage the space, time and resources to make exciting theatre.
Alix In Wundergarten
Director Angharad Lee and the company, which includes François alongside Jess
Lloyd Jones, Dean Rehman and Dewi-Rhys Williams, are reworking the show for the
run at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. The show will run at the Underbelly’s Cow
Barn venue in tandem with Aberystwyth Arts Centre and Joio’s production of Saturday Night Forever.
difficult | stage and The Other Room’s production of Alix
in Wundergarten will run at the Cow Barn in Underbelly’s Med Quad
(Venue 302) 3-29 August (every other day) at 7.10pm. Tickets are on sale now at
www.edfringe.com
What was the
inspiration for this performance?
I've
always had an unhealthy obsession with Alice's
Adventures in
Wonderland and how it seems to capture the essence of our
fears and anxieties; time, the loss of innocence, failure and the rules we run
our life by.
The
children's classic worked perfectly as a backdrop with a bigger need in wanting
to expose and explore the strange, hilarious and wonderful world of the arts
scene as a whole. The comedy then kind of just fell into place.
How did you
go about gathering the team for it?
There
were people that I knew I wanted to work with and took this opportunity to grab
them while I could and basically wrote the roles with them firmly in mind.
Whether they actually ended up playing the roles or not due to other
commitments was irrelevant as it initially gave the characters a solid and
dimensional existence on the page.
Having
said that the actors new and old, have had a massive stake in who these people
are and the decisions they make.
How did you
become interested in making performance?
I've
been an actor since going to a drama youth group at Llanover Hall in Cardiff at
the age of 12. It was that or a pottery class. I'm not good with clay or
clearing up so drama club was the next class.
If
I'm being honest since then everything has geared towards either being in other
people's productions or most recently creating my own concoctions with
difficult|stage, a company I founded along with co-directors Katy Owen and Ben
Tyreman.
Was your
process typical of the way that you make a performance?
It
very much seems that way. Our first production as difficult|stage The World of Work written by our very
own anarchic Katy Owen saw us develop
a freedom in rehearsals where we didn't
set ourselves strict and rigorous confounds within normal theatre form. We let
the actors play and find a truth within themselves so they could bring
magnified aspects of their own identity to the role and narrative.
It
is something we have definitely brought into Alix in Wundergarten and plan
to continue with this method with future projects maybe steering it in a
slightly different direction next time so as never to feel comfortable with the
scary aim of testing our audiences and ourselves.
What do you
hope that the audience will experience?
To
make them laugh essentially and leave them asking why they laughed. Like
crying, laughter is such a personal thing even though it tends to be something
we do collectively. Exploring the depths of what we find funny is fascinating
to me and where we allow laughter to take us whether it's delirium, pain or
frustration is equally intriguing.
Last
year I saw a show called The Dark side of
the Mime and it really tested people's limits. Even I, with my penchant for
darker than dark humour was on the edge of what I could take. Who knew mime
could be so hilariously frightening. The artist cleverly drew a mirror up to
his audience and I like that...a lot! I hope to achieve a similar result if we
possibly can.
Joan
Littlewood once said 'life is a transition from darkness to darkness and
anything that cheers that up is valuable' (I've paraphrased slightly but I
think it's better) 'oh isn't he modest' - Kenneth Williams voice!
What
strategies did you consider towards shaping this audience experience?
We
definitely wanted to challenge the commercial crowd of theatre goers and give
them a new experience. Through its boldness and unapologetic approach using
black humour we planned from very early on with Alix in Wundergarten to stage a live visceral experience that was
all consuming, sensory wise.
The
result is sometimes painful and cringing to watch as well as embarrassingly
funny because we recognise a lot of those feelings but they're generally not
showcased theatrically and kept under wraps personally. Collaborating with a
clear vision was the answer to this and surrounding ourselves with like minded
people as well as creatives who may challenge and push our ideas seemed a good
working ethic from day one.
After
years of going to the theatre I realised that we have fallen very securely into
the trap of accepting that theatre needs to be a certain way: clarity, staging
and drama structure. For me this was becoming dull and uninspiring so I felt
the need as an audience member and as a writer to mix things up and play around
with how work is presented. James Dean, God rest him, was seen as a strange
undisciplined actor by his peers in the 50's but when we look back now we
realise that he was way ahead of his time and was insightful enough to go
against the grain. I hope we can do the same and like sh*t, some of it will
stick!
Do you see
your work within any particular tradition?
I'm
hoping that it's unique enough to stand out on its own. Come see it and be the
judge. We've called it a twisted black comedy but our audiences may feel
differently.
We are all monkeys vying for
status.
A group of actors. Trying to
do a play. Locked in a studio….go tumbling down a
black hole in this disturbingly wünderbar and terrifically bonkers twisted dark
comedy. You’d be mad indeed to miss it… bring your own banana!
“Congratulations
radio drama fan! You are invited to join our live recording of Lewis Carroll's
classic, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. On attending in 2015, Lee McCarthy
said 'after losing my Mother and step-brother to swine flu, watching an
all-Mongolian cast record Three Sisters cheered me right up. I created the
sound of mating foxes with a carrot and an oyster knife.’
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