Adaptations, reinventions, and renewals at The Hours Bookshop, Brecon Feb 26 2015

Kaite O’Reilly: A Talk on adaptations, reinventions, renewals…

I will be giving a talk at the splendid The Hours Bookshop and Cafe, 15, Ship Street, Brecon, on Feb 26 at 4.30pm.

This free talk on adaptations, reinventions and renewals is in association with the performance of my production Playing The Maids at Theatr Brycheiniog, Canal Wharf, Brecon, that evening, 26th February at 8pm.

Over my career, I have reinvented many received stories. This informal talk will include how I approached Aeschylus’s ‘Persians’ for National Theatre Wales in 2010, for which I received the Ted Hughes Award for new works in poetry, to’Woman of Flowers’, my gritty retelling of the myth of Blodeuwedd from The Mabinogian,  to ‘Playing The Maids’, an international collaboration of new performance work in the age of austerity inspired by Genet’s play of class power dynamics…

Where to begin? What are the pitfalls? Is a story ever truly ours, or just passed down to the next generation?

The work inspired by Genet’s ‘The Maids’ is an international intercultural collaboration between The Llanarth Group (Wales), Gaitkrash (Ireland) and Theatre P’Yut (Korea), touring Wales 19th Feb – 6 March 2015.

‘…total imaginative engagement… a frontier of experimental work..’ (Echo on preview of ‘Playing The Maids’ at Cork Midsummer Festival 2014)

‘..a complex, multi-layered work… richly gorgeous stuff…’   (Jon Gower on ‘Playing the Maids’ preview)

My talk at 4.30pm at The Hours Bookshop and Cafe coincides with the extension of an exhibition there. Leigh and Nicky of The Hours wrote:

‘Blodeuwedd’ is Artist Toose Morton’s response to the tale we gave her from ‘The Mabinogion’ with which to conjure an exhibition of new work. And that she has. A wonderful fusion of Life Drawing, Painting and Sculpture the exhibition can be seen (and indeed works purchased) in our little upstairs gallery until February end. You can read more about Toose and her work here: https://www.facebook.com/Toosemortonart

http://the-hours.co.uk/

 

Fundit: Playing the Maids – three days to do it.

Crowdfunding and its ilk is probably the defining word and activity of this particular era. I’ve heard so many arguments for and against of late – euphoric stories of people investing in arts projects they believe in (and getting ‘gifts’ or perks in return), to those who see this kind of funding as being complicit in the privatisation of the arts.

Adrian Curtin and Mick O’Shea

However we may approach it, this practice is now ubiquitous, and part of the process of getting work before an audience… And so here is an appeal from Gaitkrash (Ireland), The Llanarth Group (Wales), Theatre P’Yut (Korea), and Jing Okorn Kuo. We are looking for support to realise Playing the Maids…

As rewards for supporting this campaign, we have tickets to the previews in Cork in June 2014 and the premiere in Cardiff in 2015, original artwork by Mick O’Shea and other surprises and treats. We are trying to raise 2,500 euros over one week (donations can be made in euros and sterling) – we are half way there after three days and have three days remaining – so time is of the essence!

I know these are austerity times and the artistic community are making increasingly ambitious work with less and less money. I know there is barely enough money to go around as it is – and our future challenges will be how to survive. All we can do is continue with hope, optimism and  integrity, making the best work we can. I think this is a special project, but you can see a trailer and details of the campaign at:

http://fundit.ie/project/playingthemaids-gaitkrashllanarth-pyut

Playing the Maids: Inspired by Jean Genet’s classic, playing ‘the maids’ explores the dynamics of power and servitude, wealth-as-privilege, and the politics of intimacy. Two pairs of maids – Irish and Korean, a Chinese Madame, a sound artist, and a cellist weave together a rich web of musical, textual and gestural languages to create a compelling theatrical experience.

‘…a very moving and intense experience… humour, beautiful imagery; a strong and fascinating sound score that forms an integral part of the live performance…’

A collaborative, co-created production featuring an international group of seven performers: two onstage musicians (Mick O’Shea: sound artist; Adrian Curtin: cello) with a Chinese ‘madame’ and two sets of sister-maids—one Irish (Bernie Cronin; Regina Crowley) and one Korean (Jeungsook Yoo; Sunhee Kim). Director: Phillip Zarrilli; Dramaturg: Kaite O’Reilly.

PREVIEWS: 2014 CORK MIDSUMMER FESTIVAL:

Friday 20 June: 18:00 and 20:00; Saturday 21 June: 13:00; 18:00; 20:00…Tickets: GRANARY THEATRE, MARDYKE, CORK. info@granary.ie 021 490 4275 http://www.corkmidsummer.com/programme/event/playing-the-maids…On-line video trailer: youtube: playing the maids

PREMIERE: CHAPTER ARTS CENTRE (Cardiff, U.K.)

From February 20-28, 2015…Original development funding by the Arts Council of Wales, 2013.

 

 

Diary of a collaboration.Day 3.

During our previous two days collaboration, we shared song, sounds, music and dance representatives of ‘Madam’ figures from our respective cultural backgrounds; we’ve explored initial texts generated by individuals of the ensemble in response to the stimulus text (Genet’s The Maids); we’ve made physical and text-basd improvisations in response to the sound environment Adrian Curtin and Mick O’Shea created, and in response to themes such as ‘siblings’, ‘servitude’, ‘distance’ and ‘intimacy’. This morning we begin with the starting point of props, puppets and costumes. Gaitkrash (Bernadette Cronin, Regina Crowley and Mick O’Shea) brought a treasure trove of objects from their Cabinet of Curiosities, which emerged from the ensemble’s first collaboration in 2007.

Cabinets of curiosity, a phenomenon of the Renaissance, traditionally presented the rare, the exceptional and the marvelous, encompassing both ‘God’s creation’ and man’s art. Performed by hands in the twelve mini-theatres of the cabinet, curious objects – animate and inanimate, organic and inorganic – shift, morph and mutate under the spectator’s gaze. The visual images wrestle, dance and pause in conversation with unique sound sculptures. no stories or narratives are offered – these take shape in the mind of the spectator. This wondrous cabinet of sound and vision beckons the spectator to dream-time.                                                                                     source: https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=500824779954141&id=276412909061997

Phillip Zarrilli with one of Mick O’Shea’s puppets

Phillip brought out various puppets, with which we explored agency and manipulation, prompting various instantaneous improvisations, where Sunhee and Jeungsook manipulated Adrian as he played the cello.

Already, even after such a short period together, we are beginning to see possibilities for assemblage – content that has resonance and complicity – counter-point and dissonance.

We begin to give names to sounds and combinations Mick and Adrian are making so that we may be able to identify and recreate them once we begin to montage. We could continue generating material forever, but already I am itching to put certain structures, texts, and physical scores together….

Diary of a Collaboration. Day one.

Regina Crowley and Bernie Cronin. Photo: Kaite O’Reilly

A day of beginnings.

After a brief warm-up, we plunged straight into exploring texts Phillip Zarrilli the director, Adrian Curtin the cellist and I as dramaturg have generated, in response to Genet’s The Maids. As the performers worked through the texts, Mick O’ Shea and Adrian created a sound environment.

Adrian Curtin.

It was uncanny, the speed with which we settled in to each other. The group has never worked together before, but the majority has worked in different contexts with Phillip over the past twelve years, and this shared language added to the ease with which we set immediately to work.

Jeungsook Yoo and Sunhee Kim

The collaboration is a coming together of three companies: Phillip’s company The Llanarth Group based in Wales, Theatre P’Yut from Seoul and Gaitkrash, from county Cork.

Mick O’Shea’s palette of sound

Mick O’Shea  works as a visual and sonic artist, although he doesn’t like to categorise this way. He makes many of his instruments (I saw part of an egg slicer in one astonishing contraption) and when pressed he says he works with a palette of sound, of tone.

Jing Okorn-Kuo, Bernie Cronin and Regina Crowley

Today was a day of shared starting points, of improvisation and text-based work, exploring power, servitude, and siblings…

Diary of a collaboration. 8 days. Late August 2013.

Where to begin?

The day before rehearsals start. The cliched still before the storm. Or, rather, a very restless, busy ‘stillness’, filled with reading and cleaning and searching and thinking and just standing, looking idly at nothing and everything….

So how do you prepare for a collaborative research and development week with an international group of artists, some of whom you’ve never even met?

We know our jumping off point – Genet’s The Maids. Our director has asked us to gather stimuli and propose specific entry points to themes we individually find in the script.

Various translations of Genet’s The Maids have been read, five beds have been made, bean stew for eleven prepared, travel instructions and directions to a rural location emailed… Music, images, and poetry with some form of resonance have been located, sleep has been interrupted, on and off line research pursued, a Genet biography read, past reviews sucked over, possible costumes envisaged and still I pace and deliciously fret and worry ‘What else…what else?’

One week is a a short time.

One week is a very short time for any form of collaboration, never mind one crammed with ideas and different entry points and diverse perspectives and a large company of five performers, one sound artist, one cellist, one director, three observers and one dramaturg (me). And five languages.

One week is a very short time to begin work with any real comprehension on new material generated by the group, never mind one coming together for the first time with artists from Wales, US, South Korea, Singapore and Ireland.

One week is a very short time to gather recently made material into any kind of comprehensive structure and dramaturgy – never mind then sharing it with a discerning audience of artists.

Which is what we are about to do.

And I shall endeavour to document it this week, end of August 2013.

Fasten your seat belts. It’s gonna be a bumpy (and I hope exhilarating) ride.

THE COLLABORATION is between The Llanarth Group (Wales), Gaitkrash (Rep. of Ireland) and Theatre P’Yut (South Korea).

The project will be performed by a five woman ensemble working multi-linguistically between English, Korean, and Mandarin (with possibly Irish Gaelic, British Sign Language, and German), accompanied by two on-stage musicians.

The artistic team includes:

• Director: Phillip Zarrilli, LLANARTH GROUP (Wales)
• Dramaturg/Playwright: Kaite O’Reilly, LLANARTH GROUP (Wales)
• Soundscape/environment: Mick O’Shea, GAITKRASH, assisted by guest musician/cellist, Adrian Curtin (Ireland/UK)
• Choreographers: Jing Hong Kuo, LLANARTH GROUP (Singapore), and Jeungsook Yoo (traditional Korean dance, THEATRE P’YUT)
• Performers: Jing Hong Kuo (LLANARTH GROUP, from Singapore Regina Crowley and Bernie Cronin (GAITKRASH)
• Jeungsook Yoo and Sunhee Kim (THEATRE P’YUT)