Reviews

6 Comments Posted on Arts, Cardiff, Funding, Wales Assembly Government

A Phoenix rises from The Persians

I cannot imagine that there are many who had the good fortune to see The Persians (background story) over the past two weeks, who doubted that we were present at one of the defining occasions of English-language theatre in Wales.

The cast of Mike Pearson's NToW production of The Persians

Even the London critics somehow managed to find themselves seated, not in West End luxury, but on a hard bench, clad in a regulation green poncho and exposed to the elements deep in the heart of the Brecon Beacons.

All have heaped praise on the National Theatre of Wales‘ sixth production in this year’s inaugural programme of The Persians, directed by Mike Pearson.

“They have scored a coup”, The Observer; “Pearson’s superbly imaginative and intense production, at once timeless and modern, has a rare, raw power. This is great theatre – and a thrilling mystery tour for its audience”, The Telegraph; “a production that is both minimalist and massive in its scope and marvellous in its realisation,” the Hereford Times; “what is impressive about Mike Pearson’s production is the totality of the experience”, The Guardian; “some of the finest creative talents working in Wales today… melded together to produce a unique and exciting drama, probably accompanies most artistically fulfilling production to date”, Michael Kelligan; “with the eery music, some wonderful acting and the amazing setting, this is another hit for National Theatre Wales”, Western Mail.

Yes it is all this and more. But for me, on quiet reflection, there is a story behind the production that I haven’t yet seen discussed.

The Persians represents in many ways a Phoenix like rebirth of one of Wales’s greatest theatre companies –  Brith Gof. Firstly, director Mike Pearson, conceptual designer Mike Brooks and composer John Hardy were all key players in Brith Gof’s history. Richard Huw Morgan, John Rowley and Gerald Tyler are all actors who have worked often for extended periods for the company. So, as they say: they have form.

I was a trustee of the company when its Arts Council Wales funding was terminated in 2000. The company’s last grant was £52,500. We decided that Brith Gof – always much more appreciated outside of Wales than in it – should continue as long as we could find the money and the directors had the artistic ideas. Mike Pearson and fellow directors Michael Shanks and Cliff McLucas were eventually offered jobs with regular income. In the end, we had to call time in 2004.

It has been both instructive and rewarding to search the archives to see just how much Brith Gof has given to The Persians. Anyone who saw the Welsh production of

Brith Gof's "PAX" at St David's Hall, Cardiff

“Gododdin” (a remarkable film archive is here, persist with it, the video’s not great quality) in the Rover car factory, Cardiff in 1989, “PAX” in St Davids Hall in 1991, or, even Mike Pearson’s two-man show “In Black and White” with disabled actor Dave Levett in 1992, will see the theatrical connections. The use of extraordinary musical soundscapes originated with John Hardy and Mike Pearson’s work with Test Department in the 1980’s. John Hardy’s (interview here) creativity and musical inventiveness hasn’t lost any of its edge in spite of him being a much in demand composer for mainstream film and television (and still, thankfully, based in Wales).

In the last few productions by Brith Gof – such as Hafod, technology began to appear but hand-held video cameras had to be attached to the performers with trailing cables. In The Persians we have a chorus member with a tiny handheld wireless camera and the remarkable camera work of Pete Telfer projecting the live-action onto video screens. The integration of recorded segments of video is also an inheritance from the days when such things were much more technically challenging.

Some things in the Persians are different: as Mike Pearson explains in his interview with me working with a classic text – brilliantly translated by Kaite O’Reilly – was one of his self-set challenges. It was also in English, where much of Brith Gof’s work had been Welsh or bilingual. And whilst I have no idea what the budget of the production was, I imagine that the generous Arts Council Wales and Welsh Assembly Government funding to NToW (£3M over three years) gave the team a little more flexibility than they had in the old days.

For me then, there is much satisfaction in seeing how 15 years of theatrical development in Welsh theatre could have such a stunning, successful and critically acclaimed rebirth. Many theatre companies throughout Europe owe a debt to Brith Gof. I am glad that the National Theatre of Wales, albeit by a kind of proxy,  and The Persians has been able to honour it so well.

Footnote: there have been some excellent comments that add to my story and, rather than take the credit for knowledge that I didn’t have, I ask that you click on the comments, if you haven’t already done so.
Good news that the archive may get a new life too!

Posted on Arts

The phenomena of Simonova

In writing about the new YouTube phenomena that is Kseniya Simonova there have been a couple of common threads: “it couldn’t have happened here”, and “but is it art?”
Of course it couldn’t happen here: eight minutes of prime time television with a young (albeit televisually attractive) woman throwing sand about to an edited sound track ranging from bombs to pop music, telling a story through moving pictures about the most harrowing times of her nations’ modern history in which one in five of the population died. Ant & Dec would be struck dumb, and the blessed Cowell would have had her off within nano-seconds.
If you haven’t seen her – do: I think the preliminary round performance is more compelling than the one for the final so that’s the link here – but they’re all on YouTube.

It is easy to believe, for once, the hyperbole: that this performance brought the entire Ukrainian nation to tears. So as a first reflection on the ‘couldn’t happen here debate’: what story telling of a contemporary national event would you select to move the whole British nation? Dunkirk? Diana’s funeral? The London Bombings? No, there’s nothing that would unite us in a nationwide shudder of recognition and shared pain.
And would we allow a 24 year old artist to mediate this shared experience? I doubt it, but ten of millions have tried it on YouTube even though their understanding of the story – and its personal resonance – must in most cases be very slight.
So what of the art. Well, let’s start with Guardian writer James Donaghy’s much blogged quote:

…it’s clear that Simonova has achieved her goal as an artist. If we take it that art’s purpose is to illuminate the world in a new way, provoke a reaction, somehow alter the consciousness of the viewer then her work is a huge success.

He may not have meant to be, but that seems a little grudging – alright as far as it goes. Just consider, first the technique.
I know nothing about sand drawing except that multicoloured postcardy stuff you sometimes see at the seaside. But this is live drawing – making a line and seeing where it goes as Victor Pasmore once described his technique to me. But the material is pretty crude and control must be an immense problem.
This is not a still life sketch though – nor is it quite animation. My nearest parallel is the work of South African artist William Kentridge who has produced extraordinary animated films based on stop-frame filming of works where he draws, then erases, the pictures. This shows the action in motion (although with Kentridge you never see his hand at work, unlike Simonova where the doing is part of the performance) and the rubbed out lines leave ghostly marks as the story progresses.


Simonova takes this idea a step further because the process is the art – as well as the picture. She’ll sketch – say a flight of birds – and moments later they’ll form part of a portrait. This isn’t a single picture, but a constantly moving drama that is visualised in front of us. The ghostly image of the light box (projected on a big screen for the audience who thus have a view of her as performance artist and she even uses simple prompts to set the tone of a piece) mutates as she progresses the story in startling and shocking ways. The end is usually a hand written caption.
And, the whole is choreographed to a sound track that has been thought about in advance and edited so that Simonova’s ‘drawing’ follows the audio story. It is carefully synchronised so one must assume a great deal of rehearsal is involved in order to repeat the outcome.
So it’s art, performance and video all rolled into one. It exists first for the audience – though without the big tv screen it would be a very private experience, and then for us watching both the artist and the audience. I’m not aware that Simonova has made any ‘gallery’ versions of her work, so what we get, we get courtesy of a popular Ukrainian tv show and YouTube.
This to my mind is what is extra-ordinary. Something very discrete, almost incapable of replication and sharing, is transformed by other media into something startling that can be shared by millions.
Where does she go now? What happens to the art? I’ve no idea. But I pray she stays a long way away from Simon Cowell and his Philistine crew.