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new writing: lunchtime play at the Riverfront Theatre Newport |
Chris Morgan directs Mark of the Man by Greg Glover, the second Wednesday and Thursday of this month (December 13th and 14th at 1pm) in the Studio Theatre at Newport’s Riverfront with a strong cast of John Cording, Ioan Jones and Giles Thomas and set design by Chris Gylee.It is 9.35pm at night on Thursday August 31st 1984. Against the background of the bitter miners’ strike, three men, Budgie (John Cording), Lewis (Giles Thomas) and Simon, (Ioan Jones) each a representative of his generation, are brought together in a just cause. Bound together by the solidarity of the welsh mining valley community and fighting for their threatened profession, the play explores the divisive interpersonal relationships stirred by tension between the generations in a changing world. Traditional political loyalties are challenged and family loyalties upheld in what promises to be a gripping drama. Greg Glover says of the play that its main theme is one of loss, be it on a personal level, or professional with the loss of a way of life and the destruction of the coalfields. The desperation that drives these men, he adds is all the more keenly felt as the play is based on real events with their hopes and fears played out in real time, giving the play a gritty feel, resonant of its time. The play is the last in a series of new writing produced by lecturer and theatre director Vanessa Dodd, celebrating the centenary of Newport’s Transporter bridge which has created a bridge of opportunity for new writers in the area. The series of plays, hosted by FONTB, (Friends of Newport’s Transporter Bridge) and supported by the Riverfront Theatre and the Arts Council of Wales in association with University of Wales Newport (School of Education) arose out of a Riverfront initiative and CCLL scriptwriting courses, promoting new writing for theatre. The series began with The Lady of the Usk and was followed by Hats and Kissing Only Mind, the timescales of which cover the bridge's history from its opening drawing with Mark of the Man set in the 1980s. All four plays have drawn on FONTB's archives of local stories, events, memories and incidents in the bridge's long history and contributed to on-going research in play structures. |
| The Riverfront Newport web site: |
| Vanessa Dodd e-mail: Vanessa.Dodd1@newport.ac.uk |
Monday, December 4, 2006 |
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