Revenants Dramaturgy: Nichola McAuliffe @ Edfringe 2018

Revenants

Pleasance Dome (King Dome), Potterow, Edinburgh, EH8 9AL

Wednesday 1^st – Monday 27^th August 2018 (not 8^th and 15^th), 17:00

What was the inspiration for this performance?
The play was inspired originally by my fascination with the lack of information about King George V and Queen Mary's feelings about the murders of the Romanovs for which they had been in part responsible.

Is performance still a good space for the public discussion of ideas? 
Live interaction in the theatre - a coverall word for a performance space - is, for me, vital to a healthy society. The rigour of the electrical circuit formed by actors and audience in the space (the Crucible of creativity director Annie Castledine called it) can't be bettered as a launching pad for discussion, debate and further thought. The actor should be as stimulated by the audience and vice versa. Unless it's musical theatre, in which case servicing the audience is the job.

How did you become interested in making performance?
I don't understand the term 'making performance'. There is a world of difference in performing and acting. Between doing and being. I am really only interested in acting as a way of examining the truth. The performer wants the audience to look at them, the actor wants the audience to look at the character. Performance requires admiration, nothing wrong with that. Acting allows the observer to walk a mile in another person's shoes. You may not, as an audience member, like the character but hopefully at the end of the play you will understand them.

Is there any particular approach to the making

of the show?
This play has been rehearsed in the time-honoured manner: learn the lines and don't trip over the furniture.

Does the show fit with your usual productions?
In that it is a play with a small cast who are required to turn comedy and tragedy on a sixpence - yes. I tend to write for older casts with one or two younger characters as the counterpoint of age and experience interests me more than generational ghettos.

What do you hope that the audience will experience?
I hope they'll laugh a great deal while perhaps finding themselves walking 90 minutes in the shoes of four very disparate characters:  An actor who was openly Gay during World War One and who wrote the definitive book on embroidery, Queen Mary, widow of George V and grandmother of the present Queen, who was party to the abandonment of the Romanovs, her proudly British Jamaican chauffeur, Walcott, and a brutalised young black G.I Waverley Monk who is contemplating mass murder.

They'll also experience the diverse brilliance of actor Kevin Moore, legend Peter Straker, RADA graduate Tok Stephen and multi award winner me - the Pointless Celebrity winner's perspex block taking pride of place on the piano.

Revenants

Pleasance Dome (King Dome), Potterow, Edinburgh, EH8 9AL

Wednesday 1^st – Monday 27^th August 2018 (not 8^th and 15^th), 17:00