Saturday Night Forever
By
Roger Williams
Cow
Barn, Underbelly Med Quad (Venue 302)
4-28
August 2016
Following the successful
2015 tour, Aberystwyth Arts Centre and
Joio bring their roller-coaster ride
around Cardiff’s gay scene, Saturday Night Forever, to the
Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
Saturday
Night Forever is a roller-coaster ride through
Cardiff’s night-life, as Lee, a gay man in his thirties living in the heart of
the city, breaks up with one lover and resolves never to fall in love again.
 |
| credit: Keith Morris |
All around him people are drinking too much, dancing until the early
hours and getting it while they can. But when Lee receives an invitation to a
friend's house-warming everything seems ripe for change, and it only takes
seven hours, a bottle of vodka, and the devil on his shoulder for him to break
his promise and fall back into the arms of a new admirer.
For a short while
life is sweet, but after every Saturday night comes the cold reality of Sunday
morning, and as Lee cruelly discovers, nothing lasts forever.
Directed
by Kate Wasserberg
Thu4 – Sun 28 August (every other day), 7.10pm
The
Cow Barn, Underbelly Med Quad (Venue 302)
What was the inspiration for this performance?
Roger (the playwright)
wrote the play in the nineties in order to challenge perceptions about
homosexuality, to show with humour and pathos the destruction wreaked by
prejudice, and to offer a voice to a community in his city that was at that
time underrepresented on the stage.
It is still relevant and sadly, with hate
crime back on the rise, feels more pertinent than ever.
It's also a very joyous
celebration of Cardiff and the transformative power of new love. When I met
Roger and Gareth (director of Aberystwyth Arts Centre) about the play, I was
struck by their passion for the project. When I read it, I could see that it
was a gift for a beautiful performer, and once I heard Delme (who plays Lee),
read it for the first time, I was in love.
How did you go about gathering the team for it?
I knew I wanted a design that was
primarily made of light, and Zakk Hein had just done work on A Good Clean Heart for our opening
season at The Other Room (also in Edinburgh this year).
I had loved what he
did, how he created a fun and fluid environment, so we brought him on board to
do the set and lights. The design is actually inspired by a Pet Shop Boys
Video, which won me over instantly!
Roger introduced me to Tic and Benjie, who
are amazing sound designers he had worked with before and who created a
buzzing, clever soundscape that is almost constant throughout the piece, and
Bethan Dawson, who is the stage manager holding everything (and sometimes me)
together, had also worked at The Other Room. The brilliant casting director
Nicola Reynolds was brought on board to help us find our all-important actor
and in his audition Delme took the roof off.
We all knew right away that he was
our Lee. The whole project has been led by Gareth who has been our fearless
champion, cheerleader and resident magician, and I have to give a shout out to
technicians Ellis and Levi, who took the show on tour and kept us smiling.
How did you become interested in making performance?
I sat on a crashmat in a
comprehensive school gym in Staffordshire when I was six, and watched my Dad
direct Oh What A Lovely War with a load of sixth formers. I was sold.
Was your process typical of the way that you make a performance?
One-man shows are
always a bit different – you are asking a lot of a single performer and have to
work in short bursts every day, to give them time to rest and to learn lines.
The show is more technical than is usual for me, although we have ended up with
something that on the surface is quite clean and simple. The most important
thing really was to be a great audience.
Bethan and I had to really listen
because that relationship is crucial, the audience is the other actor in a
direct address piece and you there’s no substitute for being carefully and
diligently listened to.
What do you hope that the audience will experience?
I hope that they will
be swept up, that they will laugh a fair bit, that they will be moved, that
they will love Lee the way that I do.
What strategies did you consider towards shaping this audience
experience?
We have tried very hard
to be truthful, to keep things moving, to be really there with them every night
and to offer a visual and aural world that is exciting and fun. Delme really
goes to those sadder, darker places and we hope the audience chooses to follow
him, that people are invested enough by that point. So far I think they always
have been.
Do you see your work within any particular tradition?
Not really – I suppose
I work from text, and that defines me in many ways. I’m an actor’s director, I
think, too. But the project should dictate the tradition, and I try to be open
to other ways of working. It’s so often a case of what kind of work you are
asked to do – it’s important to keep moving, not to get stuck.
The play is written by award
winning writer Roger Williams, who is well known for his work in television and
theatre. His work for TV includes the BAFTA-nominated Tales from Pleasure Beach (BBC2), Hollyoaks (C4) and Gwaith/Cartref (S4C). Most recently he created the drama series Tir for S4C, for which he won the BAFTA
Cymru Award for Best Screenwriter 2015. His plays have been performed around
the world, and he has also written radio plays for Radio 4, Radio Wales and
Radio Cymru.
Saturday
Night Forever is directed by Cardiff pub theatre
The Other Room’s Artistic Director and founder Kate Wasserberg. Kate comments:
“Saturday Night Forever is a hilarious,
romantic, dark, beautiful story of love lost and love found. The show is using
cutting edge technology to create an animated, interactive environment for the
actor to inhabit and features an original soundtrack drawing inspiration from
dance music and real recordings from the nighttime streets of Cardiff. At the
centre of it all is brave and brilliant writing from one of Wales's major
theatrical talents. A love story for modern times with a razor's edge - I
am so excited to bring it to audiences at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.”
The one man
show will be performed by actor Delme Thomas who hails from Llanelli and has
appeared in West End and off-Broadway production Potted Potter and BBC1’s Holby
City. Saturday Night Forever will run
at the Underbelly’s Cow Barn venue in tandem with difficult | stage and The
Other Room’s production of Alix in
Wundergarten.
Aberystwyth
Arts Centre and Joio’s
production of Saturday Night Forever will run at the Cow Barn in Underbelly’s
Med Quad (Venue 302) 4-28 August (every other day) at 7.10pm. Tickets are on
sale now at www.edfringe.com
Trailer
- https://vimeo.com/174698672
Age
guidance 14+
Touring
with support from Arts Council Wales
Roger Williams - Writer
Roger
Williams writes for television and theatre. His work for TV includes the
Bafta-nominated Tales from Pleasure Beach
(BBC2), Hollyoaks (C4) and Gwaith/Cartref (S4C). Most recently he
created the drama series Tir for S4C
for which he won the BAFTA Cymru Award for Best Screenwriter 2015. He also won a BAFTA Cymru award for
screenwriting for his work on the Welsh language drama series Caerdydd in 2010. He has written theatre
plays for companies including Made in Wales, Sherman Cymru and the Royal Welsh
College of Music and Drama. He was writer in residence with Sydney Theatre
Company and his plays have been performed in Australia, New Zealand and New
York. Roger has also written radio plays for Radio 4, Radio Wales and Radio
Cymru.
Kate Wasserberg - Director
Kate
is the Artistic Director of The Other Room, Cardiff’s first permanent pub
theatre where she has directed Blasted and
The Dying of Today. Previous to this
she was the Associate Director of Clwyd Theatr Cymru, where she directed Aristocrats, Last Christmas, Salt, Root and
Roe, Glengarry Glen Ross, Roots, Gaslight, Dancing at Lughnasa, Pieces (Brits
Off Broadway, New York), The Glass
Menagerie (CTC and tour) and A
History of Falling Things (CTC and Sherman Cymru). As Associate Director of
the Finborough Theatre, London, she directed The Man (national tour), Sons
of York and Little Madam, all by
James Graham and The Representative, I Wish to Die Singing and The New Morality.
Other
directing includes The Knowledge/1hr45
(Royal Court/Dirty Protest), Mirror Teeth
(Finborough Theatre), 2007 Schools Festival (Young Vic), and Switzerland (Hightide). As an Assistant
Director Kate has worked at the Barbican, the Abbey Theatre Dublin, the Young
Vic, Shakespeare’s Globe and the Theatre Royal Bath. Kate is the joint editor
(with playwright Tim Price) of Contemporary
Welsh Plays, published by Methuen.
Delme Thomas - Actor
Training:
Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts
Theatre
includes: The Apple Cart and The Invisible Treasure for fanSHEN
(Ovalhouse/Tour), Bryn Thomas in
HomeFires (Newhaven Fort), Sam in The
Backstage Tour (Hoxton Hotel), Del in Potted
Potter (West End, Off-Broadway & USA Tour), Rupert of Hentzau/Fritz Von
Tarlenheim in The Prisoner Of Zenda
(Chalkfoot Theatre Arts National Tour), Price in Fractures (Soho Theatre), Steve Sloane/Dave/Survivor/Twitter in Not Another Musical and Joe in You Once Said Yes for Look Left Look
Right (Latitude and Roundhouse), Brian in Lost
Soul and Mike in Whispering Grass
(HighTide Festival Theatre).
TV/Film
Includes: Gareth Riley in Holby City
(BBC One), Goran in The Garden
(BBC3), Britain Sings Christmas (ITV/Endemol/Initial)
Workshops:
Stopping Point (1894
Collective/Apollo Victoria), Youth
(UndebTheatre), Rossetti: The Musical
(MV Productions), Dance Class
(GiantOlive)
Aberystwyth Arts Centre
Award
winning Aberystwyth Arts Centre is Wales’ largest arts centre and recognised as
a 'national flagship for the arts'. It has a wide-ranging artistic programme,
both producing and presenting, across all art forms including drama, dance,
music, visual arts, applied arts, film, new media, and community arts and is
recognised as a national centre for arts development. Aberystwyth Arts Centre is a department of
Aberystwyth University and a member of the Institute for Literature, Languages
and the Creative Arts (ILLCA).
Joio
Joio
is a production company established by the director Lee Haven Jones and the
writer Roger Williams to produce drama that's got something to say. Its most recent commission is the drama
series Tir for S4C and the innovative
film Galesa shot on location in
Patagonia. Joio makes work in Welsh and
English. It aims to make work that is artist-led (rather than producer led) and
to make the working process an enjoyable and positive experience. Joio aims to
promote its work internationally and exploit it in different media; film, TV,
radio, digital, stage, and publishing. Joio is interested in work that has
something to say. Work we feel has social and political resonance. Work that
challenges and excites. Joio is interested in working with a variety of
partners to create its work.
No comments :
Post a Comment