Mischa Twitchin United Kingdom
The Field of Memory e The Zone of Stones
SÃO LUIZ TEATRO MUNICIPAL - Sub-Palco
12, 13 May at 5pm and 7pm (Saturday and Sunday)
Two experimental projects on Beckett’s universe by two important British theatrical scholars and researchers, Mischa Twitchin and Penny Francis.
THE FIELD OF MEMORY
Text: Samuel Beckett, from “What Where”
Music: Franz Schubert, from “Winterreise” accompaniment, played by Gerald Moore
Voices: José Luís Ferreira, Friedhelm Becker and Samuel Beckett
Performer: Mischa Twitchin
Technique: Mixed
Language: Portuguese, English and Germany
Time: 6 min.
For audiences over: M/12 Limited audience
Describing the benefits of revising his last stage work, “What Where”, for its television version, Beckett offers implicit criticism of theatrical paraphernalia. In this performance, theatre is itself shown without the “superfluities” of production - with no set, no actors, no curtain, no technical apparatus. All that appears on stage (“first without words” and then, again, “with words”) is simply the back of a wooden chair and a pair of hands, with one domestic light whose fading up and down, together with the animation of the hands, provides the “drama”. This is accompanied by a sound track offering a narrative that includes Beckett’s commentary on the limitations and possibilities of the theatrical performance of his play. Alongside Beckett’s own voice, the sound sources include fragments from “What Where”, one of the voices from Beckett’s own German television production, and phrases from Schubert’s “Winterreise” accompaniment played by Gerald Moore (which was part of Beckett’s own record collection).
THE ZONE OF STONES
Text: Samuel Beckett, from “Ill Seen Ill Said”
Music: J.S. Bach-Johannes Brahms, from “Chaconne” (BWV 1004), piano transcription for left hand, played by Paul Wittgenstein, and Franz Schubert, from the “Winterreise” accompaniment, played by Gerald Moore
Performer: Penny Francis Voice: José Luís Ferreira
Technique: Mixed
Language: Portuguese
Time: 30 min.
For audiences over: M/12 Limited audience
This production is a collaboration with Penny Francis.
“The Zone of Stones”: This performance (which draws its title from Beckett’s “Ill Seen Ill Said”) reflects on the near invisibility of old age in today’s theatre. Offering a time to experience the relation between the (ill) said and the (ill) seen - as between audience and actor - the focus of the performance is simply upon the hands of an 80year old performer. This absorption in a series of simple physical images is juxtaposed with the verbal images of the sound track – imagining, through the audience’s own associations, the time of dying. The soundtrack also features fragments of a Bach Chaconne arranged by Brahms for the left hand (played by Paul Wittgenstein), and from Schubert’s “Winterreise” accompaniment (played by Gerald Moore).
BIO
Mischa Twitchin is a dramaturg, lighting designer, deviser, lecturer, and a founder-member of the London-based theatre collective ‘Shunt’ - whose work includes the award-winning Dance Bear Dance, Tropicana and Amato Saltone (the last two presented in association with the National Theatre).
Mischa studied philosophy at Warwick University (MA on Heidegger and Celan) and dramaturgy at Central School of Speech and Drama, and is currently working on his PhD on the ‘Theatre of Death: the Uncanny in Mimesis’ at Queen Mary College, University of London. He teaches theatre and critical theory at Goldsmiths College, the Central School of Speech and Drama, and the English Faculty, University of Cambridge.
Besides his work with Shunt, he makes his own performances and is also a freelance lighting designer.
Penny Francis is a writer, editor and lecturer, active in the promotion and development of the arts of puppetry, especially puppetry in contemporary theatre. Awarded M.B.E. for services to puppetry in 1998. Trained as an actress, and worked as such 1950-1956. In 1954 she married the actor Derek Francis (1923-1984), and had two daughters. From 1961 became involved with puppetry and puppeteers, recognizing the artistry of several young practitioners in a profession then disregarded by the arts world. Co-founded the Puppet Centre Trust in 1974, and as its manager and General Secretary initiated a wide-ranging programme of events, projects, publications and P.R. designed to raise the profile and status of the art form and to attract statutory funding to innovative professional work. Edited the magazine “Animations” for sixteen years. Lecturer in Puppetry at the Central School of Speech and Drama since 1992. Francis has also written numerous articles for international conferences and journals. Her last book “Puppetry: A Reader in Theatre Practice” was publish in December 1911.
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