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NATIONAL THEATRE WALES STAGES EUROPE’S OLDEST SURVIVING PLAY IN BRITISH ARMY TRAINING VILLAGE |
One of Wales’s most celebrated directors, Mike Pearson, will bring the first recorded European play to disturbing new life in the heart of the Sennybridge Training Area, a fascinating military landscape rarely seen by civilians. This new version is written by award-winning playwright Kaite O’Reilly.Sian Thomas leads a stellar Welsh cast that includes Paul Rhys, Richard Harrington, Richard Lynch, Richard Huw Morgan, John Rowley, Gerald Tyler and Rhys Rusbatch. Aeschylus’ play is an extraordinary exploration of ambition, adventure and failure, and a powerful family tragedy. It recounts the story of the return to his homeland of the defeated Persian king, Xerxes. In this revival, Mike Pearson will stage the action in the rich setting of a military training area in the Brecon hills. On the edge of the Epynt hills near Brecon, the British Army has built a village – no-one lives there. It is a mock-up in which troops train for urban warfare. In an unprecedented move, the Ministry of Defence has permitted National Theatre Wales a unique residency on the site. For the first time, audiences will be transported across the military ranges to the remote village called Cilieni, where they will witness the tragedy of The Persians played out in a haunting contemporary setting. In houses with walls missing, amid burned out tanks and spent shell cases, Europe’s oldest drama will unfold. Richard Harrington has appeared in Fiction Factory/Y Cwmni's productions of Ed Thomas' plays House of America, Gas Station Angel and Stone City Blue. He won a BAFTA Cymru Award in 1993 for his performance in Dafydd. Richard Lynch is a stage and film actor, who first appeared in the 1986 Karl Francis film Milwr Bychan (Boy Soldier). He has since performed in television dramas including Darklands and The Proposition. Richard Huw Morgan was a member of Welsh theatre company Brith Gof from 1990 to 1997. Since 1996, he and John Rowley have managed good cop bad cop, a performance and multimedia company. In 2006, he received and Arts Council of Wales Creative Wales Major Award for his project Pharmakon - a two year sonic mapping of Wales. Paul Rhys played Peter Mandelson in Channel 4’s The Deal in 2003, and recently appeared in BBC One’s Luther. He has performed in films directed by Robert Altman and Sir Richard Attenborough, and has won several awards for his stage work, including Best Actor – Barclays PMA Award in 1999 for playing the lead in Hamlet. John Rowley worked with Brith Gof for seven years, and is now an associate performer with Sheffield experimental theatre company Forced Entertainment. He is also co-director of performance company good cop bad cop with Richard Huw Morgan. He has made several award-winning short films for Channel 4 and BBC Wales. Rhys Rusbatch trained at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and has recently appeared in BBCOne’s Merlin. Theatre credits include Our Class (National Theatre), and BBC Radio 4’s Ed Reardon’s Week. Most recently, he performed in the Young Vic production of Eurydice earlier this year. Sian Thomas appeared in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix in 2007, and recently performed on stage in the award-winning West End musical Spring Awakening. She has worked with the Royal Shakespeare Company on several productions including Macbeth, Hamlet, The Taming of the Shrew and King Lear, and with the National Theatre in Fram, The Wandering Jew and The Misanthrope. Her other West End credits include The Price, while her TV and film work includes Luther, Midsomer Murders and Perfume. She won the Critics Award for Theatre in Scotland for her role in The Goat (Traverse), and in 2003 she was nominated for the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Performance in a Supporting Role, for Up for Grabs. Gerald Tyler is a former core member of physical theatre company Earthfall, and has more recently created independent theatre productions including Something’s Wrong with Abel and the site-located theatre noir performance Big Hands. Past collaborators include Eddie Ladd, Volcano, Brith Gof, Marc Rees and Scottish Dance Theatre. Future projects will involve Music Theatre Wales (In the Penitentiary) and filmmaker Chris Nurse and producer Nerys Lloyd of Meme Films. Simon Banham (Designer) has been designing for the theatre for the past 20 years. Formerly Head of Design at Contact Theatre, Manchester, he is a founder member of performance research company Quarantine, and since 1998 has been teaching at Aberystwyth University’s Theatre, Film and Television dept. Mike Brookes (Conceptual Designer) is an artist and designer, and has worked with Brith Gof, Cardiff Laboratory Theatre, Moving Being, and Chapter Arts Centre. He has collaborated with Mike Pearson on several projects, and in 2007 was appointed Creative Research Fellow at Aberystwyth University. John Hardy (Musical Director) is a four-times BAFTA Cymru award winner, and has composed music for the Oscar-nominated Hedd Wyn, a number of Ed Thomas plays including House of America, and commissions from Music Theatre Wales, Welsh National Opera and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. This year, he became Head of Contemporary Music at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama. Kaite O'Reilly is an award winning writer and dramaturg. Her work has been widely produced across the UK and internationally. She has recently received one of the first Unlimited Commissions, part of the Cultural Olympiad, to develop new work throughout the UK from now until the 2012 London Games. Mike Pearson (Director) is best known for his work with the groundbreaking and inspirational theatre company Brith Gof, which specialised in site-specific work. He is Professor of Performance Studies at Aberystwyth University. Mared Swain is working alongside Mike Pearson as part of National Theatre Wales’ Emerging Directors Scheme. Mared trained as an actor at RWCMD. Since graduating, she has been working mainly as an actor, and since 2007 she has been co-producer of Dirty Protest Theatre company. THE PERSIANS 11 – 21 August 2010 A new version of Aeschylus’s classic play, by Kaite O’Reilly Directed by Mike Pearson Conceptual design by Mike Brookes Designed by Simon Banham Music by John Hardy Full cast includes Rosa Casado, Richard Harrington, Richard Lynch, Richard Huw Morgan, Rhys Rusbatch, Paul Rhys, John Rowley, Sian Thomas and Gerald Tyler. Cilieni Village, Ministry of Defence Brecon Beacons, Powys Tickets from £10.00 Theatr Brycheiniog Tel. 01874 611 622 |
| National Theatre Wales web site: nationaltheatrewales.org |
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Tuesday, July 13, 2010 |
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