Fearing Dramaturgy: Gareth Clark @ Edfringe 2017

(F.E.A.R.) 

is a Mr and Mrs Clark Production

Written and performed by Gareth Clark

Directed By Agnieszka Blonska

Supported by Chapter Arts, Wales Arts International and Arts Council Wales 

4th - 20th at 7.10pm (except the 9th &15th)

21st - 28th at 11.45 am (except the 22nd)

Venue - ZOO, The Pleasance 

( the Aviary Space )

MR & MRS CLARK PRESENT (F.E.A.R); A DEEPLY AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL WORK ABOUT MODERN MAN AND HIS EMBATTLED MENTAL HEALTH

 

Gareth Clark takes to the stage at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe this summer to share the deepest and darkest parts of his very soul in this astonishingly revealing solo performance. 

In a time where male mental health issues and suicide rates are reaching a critical state,(F.E.A.R.) reveals the vulnerability of a male performer in full confessional mode. 

 

Directed by Agnieszka Blonska, Gareth tells his life story in an ever-more fevered narrative. Focusing on the early childhood memories that unearth the fears of a middle-aged man plagued by news of IS attacks, Edward Snowden’s revelations and a growing concern about bladder control. 

But this show is ultimately reassuring; you are not alone, Gareth tells his audience.

 

(F.E.A.R.) was written and devised by Gareth Clark with director, Agnieszka Blonska. Additional choreography was added with the expert eye of Marega Palser, the other half of the Mr and Mrs Clark duo, who has also designed the lighting.

 

Mr and Mrs Clark follow up their Amnesty International award nominated show Smash It Up with another powerful performance questioning the way we live.

What was the inspiration for this performance?

(F.E.A.R.) is a solo show produced by Mr and Mrs Clark. It is an autobiographical expose of a life informed by public information films, news stories and the slow decay of the human body in middle age. (F.E.A.R.) asks if the World wants us to feel safe? 

Having performed largely in a duet (Mr and Mrs Clark) and with other companies I was challenged by director Agnieszka Blonska to make a solo show. I was on the trail of finding people's stories with the aim of turning them into 'meaningful' performance and I was asked about my own story. It felt only right to confront my own fears about making a solo show and also to consider and mirror the fears that society places upon us from early childhood. 

Is performance still a good space for the public discussion of ideas? 

I believe in the power of bringing people together to share in an experience. What has been really interesting about the early (F.E.A.R.) shows has been the number of emails I've received afterwards expressing gratitude for voicing common issues. 

This has certainly reiterated the belief that the connection of performance is more valid than ever in a digitised world. There are isolating factors to all of the media that we use to converse. The audience are such an important part of (F.E.A.R.) and are visible to each other so that we connect in some way. I think theatre and performance is unique and should never be undervalued for the ability to reach into a plethora of emotions. 

How did you become interested in making performance?

I started in bands and performing in Carnival. The catharsis and the irreverence of both of those experiences was addictive. The inclusivity of carnival and the spectacle gave me a great deal of confidence and I felt inspired to develop more intimate and personal performances in galleries and empty buildings. 

When I met Marega Palser we applied our combined DIY ethic to creating dance shows, a musical and political driven theatre pieces about where we lived and how we were governed. I became fascinated about how theatre provided a frame to observe people... our audiences are important in our productions... and how we connect to a wide range of audience. I've been inspired by artists that take risks and share autobiographical material and who aren't afraid to take risks. 

Is there any particular approach to the making of the show?

Agnieszka Blonska the director was integral to the development of the material. We spent sometime sharing stories and developing a life line of experiences. This then became an exercise in developing writing into story telling with elements of movement and physical theatre. I had trained with a company in Cardiff that specialised in Augustus Boal technique beyond forum theatre. His acting techniques have certainly shaped the style of performance in places.  

Does the show fit with your usual productions?

This is Mr and Mrs Clark's first solo

production and our most text driven piece of work. We've worked so closely as a duet of in small ensembles so this really is a departure in many ways from the work we've been making. However there is still a strong visual element that I think people will recognise and a persistent, but not didactic, exploration of fear and it's uses with the many structures of society. 

What do you hope that the audience will experience?

My main aim in developing performance pieces has been to create a connection. I want the audience to feel as if they know these stories or can relate them to their own lives. 

This recognition is crucial as I want people to go away thinking about the questions, does the world want us to feel safe? Fear is such an exploitable commodity and we've see wide range political change based on the fear instilled in the public here in the UK and globally. If we can acknowledge our fears we can do something about them. This production offers a rollercoaster experience of humorous and far more prescient and disturbing experiences that I think we can all relate to. How we deal with them is something we can then begin to discuss. 

Mr and Mrs Clark make timely and politically charged performances. At the Edinburgh Fringe in 2015 they were shortlisted for the Amnesty Freedom of Expression Award with their show Smash It Up, a self produced reaction to the destruction of public art and space. 

(F.E.A.R.) is another devised show analysing the impact scare mongering has to control and manipulate the public and the affects this has on our long-term mental health. 

The author Naomi Klein describes shock doctrine as the quite brutal tactic of systematically using the public’s disorientation following a collective shock – wars, coups, terrorist attacks, market crashes or natural disasters – to push through radical pro-corporate measures, often called shock therapy". 

(F.E.A.R.) asks the audience to consider whether society ever wanted us to feel safe. 

Hunger Dramaturgy: Sinking Ship @ Edfringe 2017

Kafka’s Irresistible Puppet Master

Physical theatre company Sinking Ship Productions has won widespread praise for their stage version of Kafka’s A Hunger Artist, which they are bringing to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

In the title role, Lecoq-trained performer and puppeteer Jonathan Levin is giving “possibly the best solo performance of the year” (New York Irish Arts). 

What was the inspiration for this performance?

It was equal parts frustration with the direction of live performance in the US and a soft spot for Kafka. I miss the old vaudeville presentational stuff, with red curtains, footlights, and over-the-top theatrical gestures, so I thought why not use Kafka’s story about the death and decline of Hunger Artists to also talk about the death and decline of that kind of theatricality. 

And at the same time use things like miniature “toy theatre” (which were big in the 1800s), travelling vaudeville trunks, and red curtains to tell the story.

Is performance still a good space for the public discussion of ideas?

It’s certainly better than a comment board.

The main limitation, I think, on the relevance of performance is that it reaches a finite and relatively small number of people. But when done well, it is still one of the most visceral, empathetic art forms. Maybe “empathy” is a strange way to answer a question about ideas, but it’s essential to understanding. 

The audience is required to participate in the act of imagination, or you don’t have a show. So it’s never passive. And you are in a group, almost always. You can’t sit at home and watch alone, and there’s no screen mediating between you and the performer. 

In a world that feels increasingly lacking in empathy, performance feels absolutely necessary.

How did you become interested in making performance?

There were a couple of shows I saw that really blew my mind at various points in my life, and I think I’m still trying to process/recreate those experiences: Mabou Mines’ Peter and Wendy, Pig Iron’s Chekhov Lizardbrain, and a puppet company called Wakka Wakka. 

Each one had this incredible sense of magic, imagination and theatricality that I’ve been striving to find my own flavour of… Maybe we’re all just chasing the theatrical dragon so to speak.

Is there any particular approach to the making of the show?

We went into this project with some major storytelling limitations, namely: how can we adapt this story about an ascetic performance artist who spends most of his time inside a cage in a theatrically dynamic, constantly surprising way using only one performer? 

And the more we began to translate the piece into a series of contained character bits/clowning set pieces the more we found ourselves navigating even more self-imposed limitations and conventions. 

But these sort of artistic boundaries, while restricting, encourage a tremendous sense of play and problem solving in a room that was basically working through absurdist trial and error.

The piece was built collaboratively, with the three core company members being performer Jonathan Levin, writer Josh Luxenberg, and director Joshua William Gelb. We worked together from the start to pull apart Kafka’s story, find the theatrical translation, and create the staging. Playing off each other allowed us to create an intricate, interconnected work.

Does the show fit with your usual productions?

In a way, it’s a distillation of Sinking Ship’s work. All our other shows have been large casts - and too big to travel with. We built this one with Edinburgh in mind. 

Of course - and maybe this is a hallmark of our shows - we find it hard to think small. So we packed a ton of stuff into this (not so little) trunk show. The content of the plays we’ve made has been wildly different. What connects it all is a love of surprise, delight, and inventiveness (especially as an avenue to discussing big or hard ideas and feelings), an emphasis on physical, visual theatre (often with a dose of puppetry), and total integration of every element of performance. 

We believe that anything the audience sees is part of the show, which means we give as much consideration to a scene change as a scene.

What do you hope that the audience will experience?

A Hunger Artist is at its core about the relationship between the performer and the audience. So while this is technically a solo show, the audience plays an integral part. You might even call some moments “participatory” (though if that word gives you pause, don’t worry, it’s not like you’ve seen it before). 

As the trajectory of the Hunger Artist’s career shifts from prestige to anonymity, so to does the audience’s experience shift from the comfort of clown to the inevitably Kafkaesque. The performance, and in particular our central prop, a large theatrical touring trunk, is filled with surprises that will delight, astonish, and perhaps even disturb.

What strategies did you consider towards shaping this audience experience?

Without giving too much away, a portion of the show, as mentioned above, relies on some cleverly guided audience participation. So we’ve spent whole workshops devoted to figuring out what works, what doesn’t, what’s fun, and what’s not, when involving the unpredictable element of the audience on stage. 

We’ve come away with something that seems a little magical, to the point that everyone seems to think the audience participants are plants. They’re not!

In common with Kafka’s celebrated Metamorphosis, the story draws people into a world somehow familiar and yet extraordinarily strange.

   

The story opens with an account of how cheering, laughing crowds once flocked to see the hunger artist who starved in a cage for 40 days and 40 nights at a time for their entertainment. 

What then unfolds is a powerful piece of physical theatre mixed with elements of puppetry. The seemingly whimsical nostalgia for a lost art form rapidly transforms into a troubling trip into the nature of memory, art and spectatorship.

Although never explicitly addressed, there is a disquieting sense that the forces, frailties and fascinations Kafka exposed in 1922 were linked to the rise of fascism back then and of far right populism today.

Levin says: “It’s a dark tale, but there is lots of humour which is something we really bring out in the production. We’ve tried to make it very fresh and physical, so there’s always lots going on. New York has been great and now we are looking forward to the biggest challenge of them all – the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.” 

Created collaboratively by Levin, writer Josh Luxenberg, and director Joshua William Gelb, A Hunger Artist is crossing the Atlantic to Edinburgh following its successful run at the historic Connelly Theater in New York’s East Village. It is packed with transformations and there are so many people on the stage that it never has the sense of being a solo show.

A Hunger Artist has further cemented the reputation of the Brooklyn-based Sinking Ship, garnering considerable critical acclaim: "Boisterously funny and chokingly sad,” Blogcritics; “An unflagging sense of theatrical invention, Lighting & Sound America; “Beautifully imagined… full of heart,” Culturebot.

Listings details

•  Theatre

•  Venue: Zoo (Venue 124) 140, Pleasance, EH8 9RR

•  Dates: 4 to 28 August

•  Time: 17:45

•  Duration: 70 minutes 

•  Guidance: None

•  Tickets:  £9 to £11

•  Box office: 0131 662 6892

•  Group: Sinking ShipProductions

Dramaturgy and Tickle: Liz Aggiss @ Edfringe 2017

LIZ AGGISS 

SLAP & TICKLE

ZOO |VENUE 124 | 19:10 | 1HR |16+| AUG 21 – 260131 6626892 |

Part of British Council Edinburgh Showcase 2017

Maverick, anarchic, indomitable and fearless: all words that have been used to describe performance artist Liz Aggiss. Born in an era when children were seen and not heard, Liz never had a clue what she wanted to do. She just knew she wanted to be seen and heard.



Slap and Tickle is a dark and ribald physical commentary on cultural mores and sexual taboos: a disorientating display of interpretations and contradictions about women, girls, mothers, bitches and senior citizens.

What was the inspiration for this performance?

I am the inspiration. As the solo, feminist, mature performer, Slap and Tickle explores sexual taboos, preconceptions and expectations on female visibility and representation. It dissects the subtle, and not so subtle world of gender politics. I stage a revolt against the mundane and banal through the re-appropriation of glamour and beauty. 

I make my body the stage on which I act out, and act up, but…. “The hilarious tickle never undermines the serious slap in this solo – sheer brilliance.” Mary Brennan The Glasgow Herald. 

I deliberately make a spectacle of myself, de-familiarising the ‘codings’ of femininity. I violate boundaries between being subject and object. I am the author, so it’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to. “Come on everybody lets have a party!”

Is performance still a good space for the public discussion of ideas? 

Always. That’s the point of art. And hopefully that lingers on to the post show chat in the bar.

How did you become interested in making performance?

It found me. I have an odd, eclectic, non-specific background in being classifiably unclassifiable, an un-disciplined inter-disciplinary artist. Through chance, opportunity, research and belligerence I found a performing art in the expressive gesture and grotesque performance form that suit my body and me. 

I am a one-woman operation; performing, directing myself, writing texts, sorting visuality, constructing choreographic mash-ups, producing, administrating, and generally puzzling how to communicate complex ideas in a clear visual performance form.

Is there any particular approach to the making of the show?

With 40 years of performance experience and 64 years of womanhood under my belt, I am the Mistress of Stamina and the ‘enfant terrible’ of the bus pass generation. There is no question that this performance is jammed full of familiarity and resonance, sharing direct and indirect shared histories and posing questions through clear content. 

This is not passive viewing. The work pushes and pulls you and demands your attention. It’s an ON piece! And without giving too much away, there will be audience wrangling, balloons and prizes.

Does the show fit with your usual productions?

If, by ‘fit’ you mean, do I have a recognisable visual aesthetic, movement language, content driven by research and body politics, use text, humour, make dizzyingly fast paced collage work and fit me “With the spit of punk and the polish of ballet, Liz Aggiss transformed into a singular provocateur” (Exeunt), the central figure and soloist into the frame ?...

then yes, I suppose you could use the word ‘fit’. If you mean, do my usual productions ‘fit’ along a similar path and are we to expect ‘same-same’, then my answer is ‘always expect the unexpected’.

What do you hope that the audience will experience?

Expect to see a mature solo woman engaged in a feminist soup of collage and cut-ups, whilst lurching seamlessly between dance, text and song. Expect to revise your attitudes on mature female visibility. Expect a mirror to be held up to the invidious nonsense, name-calling and restrictions perpetrated to limit female expectations and aspirations. 

Expect a visual treat with a dizzying array of props and costumes, an aural soundtrack down memory lane and juxtaposition between vaudeville and high art, live art and physical theatre. 

And if you thought this might be a dry performance, rest assured Slap and Tickle, liberally adorned with vulgarity, cock bunting and balls, is a “fart in the church of feminist discourse” (Exeunt) and ‘”a thrillingly emancipating fuck you”(Exeunt).

This show is dark, funny, raucous, sophisticated, and potent, and it will make you simultaneously cackle and cringe.

What strategies did you consider towards shaping this audience experience?

Humour and irony are the best means to engage an audience with the serious propositions of the work. They provide a space and a frame to invite the audience to be nudged into the challenges of the content. Laughter is also a pleasurable response to elicit from an audience. Would I pay to be miserable and confused? Not knowingly!

Unpicking mythologies, platitudes, refrains, old wives tales and the invidious nonsense perpetrated to limit the aspirations of young girls and women, and suppress any sign of spirited independence, Slap and Tickle is push and pull, punishment and reward……all the way home.



Beating a path through the personal and historical, Aggiss creates a feminist soup that lurches from word to movement, from music hall to nostalgia, from costume change to prop manipulation.

“With the spit of punk and the polish of ballet, Liz Aggiss transformed into a singular provocateur”
Lorna Irvine, Exeunt Magazine

For the past 40 years Liz Aggiss has been re(de)fining her own brand of contemporary performance, blurring the boundaries between high art and popular culture; from the early 80’s supporting punk legends The Stranglers with her visual cabaret troupe The Wild Wigglers: classic solo Grotesque Dancer: award winning film Motion Control: Guerrilla Dance interventions: cross disciplinary performance The English Channel: to her current solo Slap and Tickle seen at the following Festivals; SICK! Brighton, Ignite, LEAP, Bend it! DIG, Hear Me Roar, Mature Moves Tasmania. Awards include Bonnie Bird, Arts Council Dance Fellowship, Emeritus Professor Brighton Uni, Hon. Doc. Gothenburg Uni.


LIZ AGGISS – SLAP & TICKLE
Aviary, Zoo, 140 The Pleasance, Edinburgh, EH8 9RR (Venue 124)

19:10 | 1HR |16+| Aug 21 – 26 | 

Twitter: @LizAggiss | #Slap&Tickle | @FERAL_Arts

Dramaturgy Mine: Doug Deans @ Edfringe 2017

 Put the Book Down are presenting their critically acclaimed play MINE at ZOO Southside for this year's fringe from 4th-27th. 

The play, written by Doug Deans and performed by the captivating Maisie Barlow, concerns a single mother and the night she learns her child has been arrested for a crime. A crime that's unspeakable.

What was the inspiration for this performance?

This is the first play I've written, and the idea for this originally came from a news story. When I was a teenager, like many of my friends, I used to idolise bands. There was one band in particular looked up to. This band was huge, and I wanted to be the lead singer. I wanted to have that star power. I followed every interview he gave and in one particular BBC junket, he’d brought his mother along. She could do nothing but express pride for her son.

Time went by, I grew up, my tastes changed. Then a few years ago, the band hit the news again, but this time for rather different reasons. The lead singer, the charismatic showman I had looked up to as a teenager, had been arrested. Arrested for something horrible. Truly horrific. I began following his fall from grace, looking into his arrest, researching what I could. The only thought which kept running through my mind was "what the hell must his mother be going through?"

The thought stuck with me. I wanted to tell a story from the perspective of someone who we never hear from, but who is just as much a victim as the victim. An innocent voice behind a guilty pair of hands.

Is performance still a good space for the public discussion of ideas? 

Yes. Of course. One of the greatest pieces of advice I was given about how important performance is was this: "The most effective way of making a difference with your words isn't just spewing out the facts, it's telling a story." 

MINE trailer 2 from Doug Deans on Vimeo.

Particularly now with the world becoming more and more synthetic is it vital to have these communal spaces where we can share stories as a group, a crowd of strangers with something else in common. 

It's this sharing of ideas in a public place, be it music, poetry or theatre, that often resonate the most with people. Live performance creates the most visceral of memories.

Live performance changes lives.

How did you become interested in making performance?

Well, originally, I began writing this play for myself to perform. I was an actor looking for something to do, hence I began writing a show for me to perform. But it became clear almost instantly that this was a mother's story, not a dad's. And that's when Maisie stepped in to the picture. I don't think anyone could have carried off the role with as much conviction and precision as her.

If I can offer any lesson for anyone pursuing acting, it'd be this. Get involved in a production where you aren't acting. In any other capacity, be it costumes, writing, painting the set, lighting, anything, you see how every piece of a performance slots together, and you get a greater understanding of how a play is put on.

Is there any particular approach to the making of the show?

For me, it's story first and foremost. Not only story, but a way of telling it. For example, I knew when writing this play that I wanted it to be a minimal confessional monologue, with no set. It makes the performance the central focus and lets her paint the picture for each scene.

In terms of developing, I wrote as much as possible and finished the play in it's rough state. From then in rehearsal room it became an aim of cutting it and cutting it. Making cuts and edits in a rehearsal room was

particularly helpful, as the writing is put on it's feet, and you learn through doing which moments work, and which don't.

As a company, we focus on telling stories about people who wouldn't normally have their stories told. That’s our aim for our future work.

Does the show fit with your usual productions?

This is our first show as a company. We're still learning who we are. I wouldn't say we have a "usual production", just stories we want to tell.

What do you hope that the audience will experience?

I hope the audience experience a story. A simple story from a perspective they wouldn't normally inhabit. I hope they talk about it afterwards, and I hope that they may leave with a little more empathy than they had when they came in.

Does the show fit with your usual productions?

This is our first show as a company. We're still learning who we are. I wouldn't say we have a "usual production", just stories we want to tell.

What do you hope that the audience will experience?

I hope the audience a experience story. A simple story from a perspective they wouldn't normally inhabit. I hope they talk about it afterwards, and I hope that they may leave with a little more empathy than they had when they came in.