What started out as a casual get-together between director Michael Kelligan, playwright Alan Osborne (both valleys’ boys, Kelligan – Cwmaman, Osborne, Merthyr) and a small handful of their actor friends in a top room in Cardiff’s Chapter Arts Centre became the basis of the On The Edge Project, a project that has continued and won the highest respect from theatre professionals all over Wales. Now, having taken his ‘script-held’ performances from Cardiff out into Swansea, Newport, Treorchy and Tonypandy, with his ninth season and four and a half year of productions under his belt Kelligan brings us new work and revivals from some of Wales’ best known dramatists.
The opening production of the season will be the first ever performance of a new play by Dic Edwards, Solitude loosely based on the lives of Sylvia Plath and the Scottish writer and heroin addict Alexander Trocchi. Kelligan has previously produced two Edwards’ plays On The Edge, Utah Blue and Franco’s Bastard and as a result playwright and director have built up a very close working affinity. After seeing his interpretation of the latter play Edwards asserted that Kelligan was one of the most original people working in Wales and possessed a very strong understanding of his work.
Dic Edwards is considered to be one of the foremost contemporary Welsh playwrights. He is seen as an inspiration by many internationally established writers. A series of over 30 letters have been published by Oberon Books from the major English dramatist Edward Bond, written to Dic Edwards. They are primarily concerned with the craft of writing for the theatre and take the work of Dic Edwards as their focus. Bond has also directed Edwards’ work. His plays have been translated into a number of different languages, with a recent Catalan version of Over Milk Wood translated by Albert Mestres and published in Tarragona as Sobre El Bosc Lacti becoming an instant bestseller. Edwards is a member of the Writers' Guild and a multi-award-winning playwright.
Through Bond, Edwards was introduced to the Royal Court Theatre which awarded Edwards a small grant from the Neville Blonde Fund to research a play about the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. The result of this research was the play Wittgenstein’s Daughter produced at The Citizen’s Theatre, Glasgow in 1993. In the previous year, The Citizens Theatre had produced Edwards' Casanova Undone. On both occasions, Edwards worked with the Goethe Award-winning director Robert David MacDonald. It was also at this time that Edwards’ work began to be published by Oberon Books Ltd. London.
Edwards is a British playwright and poet with more than 20 productions to his name. Born in Cardiff he has often found himself at odds with his Welsh background. This was never more in evidence than in 2002 when Welsh Nationalists took to the stage and conducted walk outs during the run of his play Franco’s Bastard at Chapter Arts Centre in Cardiff.
He was born in Cardiff and studied at St David’s College, Lampeter, University of Wales, Cardiff and University of Wales, Aberystwyth. His plays include: Lola Brecht, Utah Blue, The Juniper Tree , Beggars New Clothes , Regan, The Fourth World, Antigone Now, The Free Wheelers, Vertigo, Kid, David, The Man Who Gave His Foot For Love, The Shakespeare Factory, Moon River/The Deal and Over Milk Wood which have been performed throughout the British Isles.
He is also an academic who has taught both English and Creative Writing. His published academic work includes Practice of Writing and Theories of Creativity and Writing For The Stage. He teaches Creative Writing at The University of Wales, Lampeter. Solitude along with a second play The Pimp is published by Oberon under the collective title: Two Immorality Plays
Whilst Solitude is playing in Wales, Edward’s play Casanova Undone will be produced in Copenhagen.
Solitude plays:
Chapter, Cardiff – Tues. Feb. 17, 8pm
The Dylan Thomas Centre, Swansea – Wed. Feb. 18, 7.30pm The Riverfront, Newport – Thurs. Feb 19, 7.45 pm Coleg Morganwg, Tonypandy – Fri. Feb. 20, 7.30pm
In March Kelligan introduces a newcomer to On The Edge, Cardiff writer and singer Tony Etoria. His play Caribbean Angels puts fun, laughter, song and fantasy into the season all with a delicious Jamaican flavour
Caribbean Angels plays:
Chapter, Cardiff – Tues Mar 17, 8pm
The Dylan Thomas Centre, Swansea – Wed Mar 18,
Parc & Dare Theatre, Treorchy – Fri Mar 20, 7.30pm
April brings a newly updated version of Stairway To Heaven by another considerable figure in the Welsh drama scene, Laurence Allan, born in Pontypridd, Allan has written for most of the theatre companies n Wales. His play Flowers From Tunisia won the best new play at the Theatre in Wales Awards and he currently working on a novel, The Last Buffalo.
The play is a rock’n roll fantasy exploring the fragility of friendship amid the baggage of the past. Dai, Harley and Merv the Swerv are childhood friends who grow up to be a fighter pilot, a saxophone player and a motorbike mechanic. When the Gulf War erupts and Dai, the fighter pilot, becomes involved, their friendship implodes, and then when he dies, it is completely shattered. When he returns as a genie to grant one of his friends one wish they all have the chance of redemption
Stairway to Heaven plays:
Chapter, Cardiff – Tues. 14 Apr, 8pm
The Dylan Thomas Centre, Swansea – Wed. 15 Apr, 7.30pm
The Riverfront, Newport Thurs 16 Apr, 7.45pm
Parc & Dare Theatre, Treorchy Fri 17 Apr, 7.30pm
Like Dic Edwards, Cardiff based, Irish writer Mark Ryan has worked very closely with Steve Davies, Artistic Director of Tonypandy based Spectacle Theatre. Davies is a Kelligan protégée from the late sixties back at the Casson Studio Theatre in Ruby Street, Splott. May brings his taught and incisive play, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde as Told to Carl Jung by an Inmate of the Broadmoor Asylum.
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde plays:
Chapter, Cardiff – Tues. 12 May, 8pm
The Dylan Thomas Centre, Swansea – Wed. 13 May, 7.30pm
The Riverfront, Newport Thurs 14 May, 7.45pm
In May, founding On The Edge member Alan Osborne offers A Pair of Cardiff Pants, two short plays to complete the season. A remarkable man: a much respected painter, composer, librettist, teacher and playwright who like so many Welsh polymaths, owes a great deal to his roots as a boy growing up in a Merthyr terraced house as part of a poverty-stricken but intellectually lively family.
A Pair of Cardiff Pants plays:
Chapter, Cardiff – Tues. 9 June, 8pm
The Dylan Thomas Centre, Swansea – Wed. 10 June, 7.30pm
The Riverfront, Newport - Thurs 11 June, 7.45pm
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