A Clean Heart Dramaturgy: Alun Saunders @ Edfringe 2016

A Good Clean Heart 

Underbelly, Cowgate (Venue 61) ​  

Aug 4-7, 9-14, 16-21, 23-28 18:40

Fresh from winning the Wales Theatre Award 2016 for best Playwright in the English Language, Alun Saunders, Neontopia and Wales Millennium Centre bring his funny and moving play A Good Clean Heart to Edinburgh for its Fringe debut.

Credit: Aenne Pallasca

Having suppressed any desire to know more about his early life, before he was adopted, on his 18th birthday Hefin discovers not only that has a sibling, but that he wasn't - as he'd always believed - born in Wales. On a defiant whim, Hefin takes a trip to meet his long-lost big brother, and crash-lands in a totally alien universe, just two hours down the M4. A Good Clean Heart asks whether the love between two siblings raised in different cultures can overcome their differences.
A Good Clean Heart, originally produced by and premiered at Cardiff's pub theatre The Other Room, is a moving coming-of- age story about two brothers raised by different families, and who speak different languages.

With animated surtitles in both English and Welsh, and directed by Mared Swain, this production brings exciting new Welsh writing to the heart of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

What was the inspiration for this performance?

In August 2012 my husband and I began the Adoption process to become dads… It’s been an epic, rollercoaster journey, and one on which we’ve learned an incredible amount about ourselves, about children, about the care system… It’s been QUITE an education!

Soon after this, I was set the challenge to write a short 2-hander play with a character from Wales and one from England. Thinking outside the box, I explored the idea of them being siblings who had been separated through adoption at an early age.

National pride comes in very different forms - neither less valid than the other - in the people of Wales and of England, and I thought it would be an interesting element to explore alongside this idea of a person’s identity being built on an untruth.

Thanks to a lot of hard work and faith shown in me by Mared (Swain), the play’s director, and by Kate Wasserberg, Artistic Director at Cardiff’s (award-winning) pub theatre, The Other Room, the full-length, bilingual play, A Good Clean Heart, was produced in April/May 2015, and with an overwhelmingly positive audience response, we realised that it had legs to go further.

Oh, hello Edinburgh…! 

How did you go about gathering the team for it?

Mared and I soon realised that we’d need to form a company in order to (even try to) source the funding to get A Good Clean Heart out there. We formed Neontopia in September (soon after our visit to the Edinburgh Fringe!), and soon began discussions with Wales Millennium Centre regarding co-producing.

Some of the original team of creatives had moved on to other projects, but we’re lucky to have retained a good few, including Zakk Hein, our AWESOME AV Designer, who’s responsible for our projected surtitles, and Dyfan Jones, our sound-as-a-pound Sound Designer. We have a new Designer in Carl Davies (who we’ve known since training at RWCMD), and the great experience of Lighting Designer, Elanor Higgins.

James Ifan, a member of the original cast is coming back to play HEFIN, and after a really inspiring casting period, meeting some terrific, open actors, we’re excited to have cast Oliver Wellington to play JAY.

By now there are so many (brilliant and dedicated) people on board, it’s feeling really exciting, and also humbling, knowing that all this work is going into getting your play ‘on’. 

How did you become interested in making performance?

I’ve always performed, since being very little, from the school choir to performances in Eisteddfod yr Urdd (a massive youth movement here in Wales), to playing in various orchestras and bands. Performing is just a brilliant, liberating thing.

In August 1997 I was lucky enough to attend my first National Youth Theatre of Wales course, and met Mared on the course the following year. NYTW gave me the confidence I never had, helping me to really find myself, and I can’t thank them enough for that.

After graduating from Aberystwyth University, I gained a place at Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama to study Acting. Having worked as an Actor now for 14 years, my Writing career is also getting somewhere (I was lucky enough to win the Wales Theatre Award for Best Playwright in the English Language for A Good Clean Heart). Exciting times!

I want to write because I want to change the world. Is that ridiculous? Obvious? I don’t mind - there are a lot of injustices and prejudices in this world - if I can inspire one person to open their mind, to accept something, to consider something deeper through something I’ve written, then I’m a happy boy.

Credit: Aenne Pallasca

Was your process typical of the way that you make a performance?

This was my first full-length play, and was a huge challenge - I don’t think I’ve ever written so many drafts of anything in my life, BUT I like to think that it’s just made this play the best it can be. I’m less afraid of hard work than I’ve ever been.

Mared and I live bilingually - speaking, reading and understanding two languages, using both every day. We’re so lucky. We’re really excited by the idea of work which incorporates more than one language, and how to make that as accessible as possible to those who may not understand either (or both!) language(s).

We were really inspired by Welsh-learning audiences who saw the original production of AGCH, who said that they felt more positive, that they understood more than they expected, and were easily able to grasp what was happening. Many learners feel the task of learning the language is monumental, so if we can play a small part in inspiring them, then we’d really like that.

What do you hope that the audience will experience?

Part of our ‘motto’ is “never boring”. We’re passionate about exciting audiences, about inspiring them in some way.

We hope that audiences who have no experience of the Welsh language will leave having heard a little of it (maybe even remembering a phrase or two!), but also that they leave having seen a play which goes somewhere, where the characters go on an interesting journey.

If anybody leaves ‘bored’ we’ll be absolutely gutted - it’s our job to ensure they don’t!

What strategies did you consider towards shaping this audience experience?

Mared wouldn’t rest, or let me rest, until we had a play which we were confident was great. Whatever the technical aspects of the production, the play has to be the main thing.

As this is a bilingual play, with one character speaking predominantly in his mother-tongue of Cymraeg, we use projected surtitles to make sure that the audience understands at all points what is going on.

The whole thing has to be dynamic - that’s what we’re aiming for, as well as throwing in a few surprises along the way…

 

Do you see your work within any particular tradition?

Without speaking ill of that which has come before, we’re passionate about creating original work - original ideas, conveyed in an original fashion. Bilingual work (in English & Welsh) is a really rare thing in Wales, surprisingly.

If anything, we’re eager to break with as many traditions as possible and inspire people to really, really enjoy theatre. It may not change your life forever, but if you can make people happy or excited and hit their emotions for an hour in a black box, then send them out into the world with a new idea, notion or realisation then, yeah, we’ve done our thing.

 

My People Dramaturgy: Gwyn Emberton @ Edfringe 2015

Gwyn Emberton Dance presents:
My People 
PART OF COREO CYMRU AND CHAPTER’S WELSH DANCE STRAND 

The damning short stories that earned Caradoc Evans the title of Wales’ ‘best-hated man’ are recreated by six dancers through compelling dance theatre

Choreographed by Gwyn Emberton and dancers

ZOO, The Sanctuary, Venue 124, 24 – 29 August, 1pm (2pm)

“Emberton’s narrative impulse is compelling… My People is a mature work… that deserves to be widely seen.” Jann Parry, Dance Tabs 2015 

In the centenary year of one of the most controversial books written in and about Wales and its people, Caradoc Evans’ My People, choreographer Gwyn Emberton presents the first dance exploration of this divisive work. Gwyn Emberton joined by five exceptional international dancers delves into the dark and turbulent fictional village of Evans’ Manteg. They give heartbreaking and affecting performances as they collide with the short stories of Wales’ ‘best hated man’ (Western Mail). 


The Fringe
What inspired this production: did you begin with an idea or a script or an object?
The piece is inspired by one of the most controversial books, My People, to be written in Wales and about the Welsh people by Caradoc Evans. 

It is an incredibly visual book and it just jumped off the page into the studio so to speak.

Why bring your work to Edinburgh?
We have been trying to get the work out there as much as possible and Edinburgh is always a good way of reaching new audiences and programmers. It is also a great opportunity for the company to perform the work for a week of performances rather than a night or two in one venue, this really develops work in a completely different way. 

What can the audience expect to see and feel - or even think - of your production?
When making the piece I was always aware that I didn’t want it to be literal retelling of the book. To start with it would have been impossible as their are 15 complex short stories. My aim was to capture the essence of the book, the overarching sense of a community struggling with how it behaves and how each level of its society treats each other. 

Although the book was written 100 years ago this year, its themes of suppression and control by those in positions of power, particularly from a religious stand point and the way women are treated and abused are still significant and incredibly relevant issues today. 



The Dramaturgy Questions

How would you explain the relevance - or otherwise - of dramaturgy within your work?
I see this as how the work connected as a whole then how the work is received. What the structure presents, how the characters are perceived and if what I am trying to get across does so. 


Do you have a particular process of making that you could describe - where it begins, how you develop it, and whether there is any collaboration in the process?
I’ve combined two and three. 

Up to this point my main mode of creation has primarily been through task based propositions inspired by and responding to the source material, either through improvisation or contact work. I then use elements of Meisner and other acting principles/approaches to develop the performance/character level. I am becoming increasing interested in archetypes (Jung) and I am currently in the process of developing some new approaches to creating based on these. 

My creations are collaborations, with the dancers, composers, designers and lighting designers. 

I admire the work of Crystal Pite and Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui for craft, scale and design, Alain Platel for being brave enough to show that thing deep within us all and Matthew Bourne’s ability to tell stories though movement. 

I am inspired by other art forms, particularly ones which are based around words, whether it’s novels, plays, films or poems. Everything gets thrown in to the work, even the colour of cover of the book can feature in some way.

What do you feel the role of the audience is, in terms of making the meaning of your work? 
I don’t want to spoon feed the audience by making the work too linear whilst still giving it a sense of narrative. I hope that the audience feel that they have the freedom and the joy to respond to the work in any way they want, they complete the relationship with all the other elements. My job is to offer an atmosphere that gives them the potential for them to do that. 

An award winner at the Wales Dance Platform, the production combines a cinematic score with the haunting world of Evans’ most memorable characters, including Achsah, thought to be a madwoman, who is locked in the attic and taken out at night by her husband on a cow’s harness and Nanni, who sacrifices herself for a respected Minister and is left to have her face eaten by rats. The Edinburgh 2015 production will be performed in a former church – the ideal setting for a work based on a conflicted chapel community. 
Early twentieth century writer Caradoc Evans is one of the most contentious figures in Welsh literary history, although admired for his writing style he was also despised for his unflattering portrayal of his own people. Attempts were made to ban the book and his portrait, in the national gallery in Cardiff, was slashed twice across the neck. The book deals with issues including religious hierarchy, the treatment of women, a depraved and troubled society, all of which remain relevant today. 
Speaking about the production, Gwyn Emberton said, “In making My People I was able to bring together an incredible group of international and exceptional dancers and the work of two of Wales’ brightest musical talents, Tic Ashfield and Benjamin Talbott, who are currently co-composing for BBC Wales’ Hinterland. Together we bring the dark world of Caradoc Evans’ My People to the stage. Whilst the book is a very critical portrayal of his, our, own people, I admire him for questioning the community that he felt treated him and his mother so unfairly and for using his art to do so. The stories are dark but it is the beauty found in this darkness that attracted me to make the work. It is incredibly visual and lends itself to dance theatre effortlessly.” 
Gwyn Emberton’s My People is part of the Welsh Dance Strand presented by Coreo Cymru. Taking place during the final week of Edinburgh Fringe it also showcases the work of three other Wales’ based choreographers; Sally Marie’s I loved you and I loved you, Theatr Genedlaethol Cymru’s Dawns Ysbrydion and CAITLIN, directed by Deborah Light, which Gwyn Emberton also co-devised and performs with Eddie Ladd. Coreo Cymru is an initiative set up to encourage and manage the creation and production of new dance activity, and to support the development of Wales based artists and companies.
Gwyn Emberton Dance is the company of award winning Welsh choreographer Gwyn Emberton who has worked with many of the UK’s and Israel’s major choreographers and companies, such as Akram Khan, Matthew Bourne, Jasmin Vardimon, Scottish Dance Theatre and Inbal Pinto Dance Company. Gwyn Emberton’s work has toured the UK, Europe and the Middle East and he has also choreographed for theatre, TV and music videos. This will be the second year Gwyn Emberton’s work will be at the festival. 

Gwyn Emberton is an associate artist of Aberystwyth Arts Centre and Chapter's Creative Producer Programme, Coreo Cymru. My People and CAITLIN were both nominated for Wales Theatre Awards, with CAITLIN winning the Best Dance Production award.

SKY arts...awards. Ballet and Opera

I am naturally suspicious of the Sky Arts Awards: it's something to do with TV, which I don't like (the fundamental difference between live performance and representation on a screen is that the latter fails to create a shared experience, except in virtual, anonymous terms and denies the immediacy of a critical moment). It is supported by a network that hasn't exactly shown itself to be honest and proud. The two Scottish winners have more credibility than the awards body, suggesting that the association of the artists does more for the TV network than it does for the winners - although there is a subtle interplay there. The winners get exposure, the network gets credibility and...

Enough of the doubts for the moment. It's wonderful that two of the three Scottish National Companies have won awards. A Streetcar Named Desire from Scottish Ballet got the Dance Prize: Ghost Patrol won the Opera for Scottish Opera (with Music Theatre Wales). That's the second award for Streetcar this year.

In both cases, the works are not typical of their media. Ghost Patrol was a short opera, something that SO have been working on for the past few years (their 5:15 programme was made up of new quickies). SO are slightly obsessed with getting younger audiences - they have a special price for anyone under 26 - and getting an audience in and out in an hour is a strong strategy. Meanwhile, Streetcar had both a director and a choreographer. This isn't uncommon in contemporary dance, but reflects Scottish Ballet's interest in new approaches.

On the surface, this looks like a vindication of the policies of both companies. They get in new artists - composer of Ghost Patrol MacRae is a child of the 1970s, Streetcar choreographer Annabelle Lopez Ochoa had not worked with a ballet company before - and give them access to the support a large company can give. Streetcar was especially intriguing: despite having a pas de deux, which was possibly the most brutal use of elegance seen on stage on 2012, it owed much more to contemporary approaches,and placed SB's discipline at the service of an almost dance theatre style.

It's also a vindication of the smaller companies who have supported artists before they arrive at the National Companies. The awards might seem to celebrate large names (their popular music section is, unsurprisingly, a joke, having Plan B on the list, a good five years after he was vaguely interesting), but the two Scottish companies gave a platform to voices not usually heard on this scale.

I am still suspicious of Sky Arts - the development of a modern canon is too important to be left to a media organisation that has not been a force for good in the UK's political media. But it would be ungracious not to celebrate the success of MacRae and Louise Welsh (who wrote the libretto), Eve Mutso and Tama Barry (who danced Blanche and Stanley), Nancy Meckler (who directed Streetcar) and Lopez Ochoa.

Or maybe Sky are just cuddling up to Scotland before independence?