| Everyman Youth Theatre Performs at National Theatre |
NT Connections |
| Mid-Wales Youth Theatre, Ysgol Aberconwy, Aberystwyth Arts Centre Youth Company- Cable Street/ Variations , Aberystwyth , July 7, 2022 |
Rufus Norris, Artistic Director of the National Theatre, appeared on BBC Radio “Front Row” in March. He was subjected to a searching grilling by Samira Ahmed across the topics of gender balance, repertoire, national status.Norris asserted the national aspect of the company. But a great edifice of steel and concrete, he said, is there in Lambeth. It cannot be moved and it has a lot of seats that need filling. But, he said, a feminist variation of "Jekyll and Hyde" is out performing in schools all over. The company for Emma Placey's script, directed by Kirsty Housely, went to Wolverhampton, Doncaster, Salford...thirty-three destinations in all. "The show is as good as many performed at the London base- better, in fact, than some", wrote Rachel Sylvester who saw it in Walsall. "This is levelling up in action." * * * * National Theatre Connections is a regular, a nationwide youth theatre festival going back 27 years. "Every year, we commission ten new plays for young people", says the company, "to perform, bringing together some of the UK's most exciting writers with the theatre-makers of tomorrow. We work with 300 youth companies and over 6,000 young people annually from every corner of the UK." In 2022 ten plays were commissioned, one production of each heading eventually for the South Bank. It is not a competition or an assessment of ability. "Connections", explain the producers, "is a showcase of the national spread and the diversity of groups taking part. The companies chosen to perform at the NT Festival are selected by the Connections team, directors and writers. "We do look for clarity and audibility, clear story-telling, conviction and energy in the cast, and pace. We like to see productions that have observed and realised the writer’s intentions for the play, as the NT Festival is also a showcase for the plays themselves." Over the week 28th June to 2nd July the ten plays were performed by Winstanley College (Wigan), On Point Theatre Company, Leyton Sixth Form College (London), Bristol School of Acting, LORIC Players South Wirral High School (Merseyside), TheatreWorks (Deal), Kensington Arts (Isle of Man), Best Theatre Arts (St Albans), Suffolk New College Performing Arts (Ipswich), Mayflower Youth Theatre, (Southampton). On 2nd July "Superglue" by Tim Crouch was performed by Everyman Youth Theatre from Cardiff. The play's plot brought together a group of climate activists who gather at a woodland burial ground. The cause is to say goodbye to a friend who has died during a protest. Ruby Smith-Brown director: "It has been an honour to direct such a moving, special and important piece, and to bring the first intergenerational Connections play to life. Superglue is truly a play for our time that encapsulates the issues at the forefront of all our minds. Going to the National Theatre and representing Wales is an experience we will forever be grateful for." Sarah Gwynefer Bawler, Everyman Youth Theatre Director: "Since 2010 we have participated in Connections eight times, and each new writing has brought fresh and exciting challenges to the members of our youth theatre. We feel incredibly fortuitous to have this opportunity to not only perform this inspirational and moving Intergenerational play, but to share our creative work at the world-renowned National Theatre directed by one of our youth theatre members.” The cast was made up of Olive Burns, Alison Jones, Harvey Hewer, Juno Lilford, : Isabelle Sellek, Chloe Hanbury, Sid Evans, Wil Morgans, Linda Vickers, Rosy Greenwood, Geraint Dixon, Lydia-Jane Bateman, Trish Murphy, Julia Desmond, Brynley Stone, Paul Fanning. The creative team & crew were: Director: Ruby Smith-Brown Everyman Youth Theatre Director: Sarah Gwynefer Bawler Lighting Operator: Rigby Hoctor Sound Operator: Jocelyn Bawler-Harris Chaperone: Juli Paschalis * * * * NT Connections has 30 partnering theatres. Aberystwyth Arts Centre is one and on 14th May three youth companies performed. Sixty-plus performers were on show for a Saturday of celebration for the return of the festival. "Variations" by Katie Hims has a company of thirteen actors from Mid Powys Youth Theatre. Alice, aged thirteen, starts a normal school day. The dishes in the sink have piled up. Two brothers are annoying, Lucas a pedant. There is a politics of who to choose as a walk-to-school companion, power-centre Chloe or more vulnerable Cinnamon. Katie Hims creates a series of scenes of alternate worlds. Some details persist but Alice loses siblings. Friends change. The arrival of a postman with a large parcel marks the end of each scenario. The last play-out takes her back to the 80s and Alice has become her mother. There is a bit of "Back to the Future", she says, with "Freaky Friday" rolled in. The lesson learned, as she gets back to quotidian life, is that maybe what she has is not so bad. The hour-long play has music and dance and is performed by the young company with energy, verve and charm. "Variations", part of a three hour evening, is preceded and followed by two productions of "Cable Street" by Emma Goldman. The companies, Ysgol Aberconwy and Aberystwyth Arts Centre Youth Company, take different approaches. Aberconwy uses photograph projection to set the scene. A beach is revealed just beneath Tower Bridge. A drum-kit is on-stage. The young teenage drummer adds a rhythmic drive for the thirteen actors in her company. The twenty-seven actors in Aberystwyth's company are on average older. Their voices are used to collective maximum in scenes of street protest. "They shall not pass" they shout to an encircling group of bailiffs and police. Director Barrie Stott gives the action a tremendous drive. Anna Sherratt is composer for the production. Civil strife is a good theme for youth theatre. In 2018 "the Ceasefire Babies" was set in Northern Ireland. Emma Goldman's action surges across 1930's Stepney, home to a hundred thousand-strong Jewish community. The young women toil in an East End sweatshop. Moseley orates his message of fascism in an Albert Hall filled to capacity. A building is firebombed. Graffiti "Perish Judah" is daubed on local walls. Knives are out. The action cascades to the proposed march of the blackshirts through the Jewish neighbourhood. Police in their thousands are there for fascist protection. The Aberystwyth stage is large and used to its full scope for surging crowd encounter. The result was historic; they did not pass. Lisa Goldman's script lasts fifty minutes but has an intricate structure set across three time settings, 1939, 1934 and 1931. The thread that connects is the relationship of Leah and Kitty, friends at first who seal their friendship with blood . Friendship moves to love but Goldman draws on an old tale of division in enmity. The Irish family has dropped the "O" from "O'Grady" to become more accepted. Kitty absorbs the ideology that motherhood will be hailed in the new society. She wears the black shirt while Leah becomes Red Leah standing high on the barricades. All art draws on contrapuntalism in its formal aspect. The quiet reconciliation of the adult women is juxtaposed with the rush of public conflict. The play has a breath of the now to it that Emma Goldman could not have envisaged at the time of writing. Leah quits the Party at the time of the Molotov- Ribbentrop pact. Long-term activist Sam remains. The division of Poland- Wehrmacht on one side, Red Army on the other- is a history that is non-history, a crime of defamation, in the Russia of 2022. |
Reviewed by: Adam Somerset |
This review has been read 952 times There are 4 other reviews of productions with this title in our database:
|
