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State of the Nation : Plays about Wales and Welshness today and yesterday |
Theatre “classics” that question ideas of Welshness.Plays that span the twentieth century. Some famous, some that have been forgotten. Some that once caused rioting in London and outrage at home. Some that you may not think are about national identity. Do they stand up to the test of time ? Do they speak to us today in post-devolution Wales ? Michael Kelligan’s new On The Edge season offers a unique chance to rediscover plays that might just form the basis of a Welsh canon of work. Curated by critic David Adams, State of the Nation is a season of rehearsed readings of texts that negotiate national identity. Each production comes with extensive background notes and offers the opportunity to discuss the play afterwards. <b>State of the Nation.</b> Plays about Wales and Welshness today and yesterday For further information ring 02920 395078 Each play (a rehearsed reading) will be performed at 8PM in the Media Point Chapter Art Centre Cardiff Tickets £3 (on the door) Wed Sept 20 TAFFY By CARADOC EVANS The police had to be called when Taffy opened to riots in London in 1923 and playwright, novelist and journalist Caradoc Evans is still known as “The best-hated man in Wales”. English director Stephen Fisher promises to bring out the issues and the conflicts. Thurs Oct 5 SLEEPING WITH MICKEY By FRANK VICKERY An emotional human-interest soap about a lonely woman – or an allegory of modern Wales ? Vickery isn’t known for his politics but there’s more to many of his plays than populist comedy. Australian David Britton looks for sense rather than sentimentality in an unexpected source. Wed Oct 18 CHANGE A Glamorgan play in four acts By J O FRANCIS Francis was one of Wales’s first professional and most popular dramatists and explored with sympathy the effects of social revolution in the Valleys that hardly seems to date – and more or less invented Welsh “kitchen drama”. Sarah Argent cats a beady Scots eye on a radical play that’s nearly a century old. Coming up: The Keep, Gwyn Thomas’s strangely-forgotten 1960s Royal Court success Ed Thomas’s House of America, contemporary Wales’s best-known play, given a new twist from a guest director, Dean Damjonovski ( Macendonia) Everything Must Go, Patrick Jones’s ambitious poetic drama, interpreted by On The Edge producer Michael Kelligan A new play directed by Ruth is Stranger Than Richard director Adele Thomas. “Looks like a National Theatre for Wales” Dai Smith |
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| Michael Kelligan e-mail: |
Wednesday, August 30, 2006 |
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