What do you get when you combine drunk dialling, beer goggles and some killer dance moves, with all the usual embarrassments and indiscretions of a house party? New musical Part A of course, storming its way into the Roundhouse this weekend as part of the Accidental Festival. Co-writers Freya Smith and Jack Williams tell AYT’s Laura Turner about being inspired by a night of sobriety at a drunken party, and how they armed themselves with just a guitar on their quest to address the need they saw for new voices in musical theatre.

Tell us a bit about Part A.

Smith: Part A is a musical which documents funny and awkward situations unfolding at a house party. Each song focuses on a single moment, whether it be a doe-eyed drunk dialler leaving an embarrassing voicemail on her ex’s phone, or a trio of chauvinists celebrating the power of beer goggles (and lamenting it the next morning). The show features a cast of six, who are accompanied by a band of four, on piano, guitar, bass and cajon. It was written by me and Jack, not long after we completed our degrees in 2011.

This particular performance is taking place as part of the Accidental Festival, which is organised by students at Central School of Speech and Drama, and aims to give emerging artists a platform to perform.

What’s your background in the industry?

Williams: We’re currently spending our time in the background of the industry.

Smith: We’re just two kids with a guitar, a pocketful of dreams and a worn out copy of Abba’s Greatest Hits, hoping to give Andrew Lloyd Webber a bloody good run for his money. But, to answer the question properly: before composing, we performed, mainly at university. I was involved in musicals and a cappella, and Jack was part of an improvised musical comedy troupe. After performing at the 2011 Edinburgh Festival Fringe I decided that I wanted to create something for the 2012 festival, and I knew just the chap to do it with. Sadly, Sondheim was busy, so I asked Jack. Since receiving positive feedback from that initial run, we’ve been trying to publicise and perform the show as much as possible, while simultaneously working on new material.

And the show itself is a song cycle?

Smith: A song cycle is comprised of a collection of songs, generally without any dialogue in between. The songs are connected by a story, or theme – in our case it’s the setting of a house party. Rather than having a linear narrative, we wanted to provide a snapshot view of a single night, and the isolated moments which occur within it.

So does one of you write the lyrics and the other the music?

Smith: Unlike most writing partnerships (in which there’s a composer and separate lyricist) Jack and I dabble with both music and lyrics. This is due in part to neither of us wanting to be the Tim Rice of the pair (sorry Tim), but also – and mainly – because we both have musical and lyrical ideas that we want to explore further. We often write the draft of a song individually before presenting it to the other person, who then jams along and acts as editor and critic.

Williams: The role of ‘critic’ is one that Freya was born to play.

Musicals and movement often go hand in hand…

Williams: Certain songs are quite stylised – ‘Beer Goggles’ has some rat-pack clicking/toe tapping and ‘Dancing’ includes some funky moves that wouldn’t be out of place in Saturday Night Fever.

Smith: While the piece doesn’t feature a huge amount of choreography, movement definitely plays a significant part in defining a character and his/her predicament. There’s a bit of slumping, a lot of staggering, and – never fear – we even include the most beloved of all musical theatre staples: jazz hands.

What’s the rehearsal process been like?

Williams: With some of the songs we had a very firm idea of what we wanted them to be like, and as a result they remained largely unchanged in the transition from script to stage. However, with others, there was a lot more room for experimentation. We were still writing parts of the show during the rehearsal period, so the original cast had a fair bit of input, especially when it came to choreography. For instance, while rehearsing one of the songs, which centres on a party goer busting some drunken moves on the dance floor, we more or less improvised a body percussion breakdown, complete with beat boxing, chest thumping, floor stomping and a slap bass solo. Needless to say, it’s in the show.

Did you deliberately decide to tackle themes that young audiences can relate to and why?

Smith: I would say it was less of a conscious decision than a natural consequence of two (fairly) young people sitting in a room and jamming. We exploited situations and topics that were familiar to us. While writing the show, we were really just concentrating on amusing – and outwitting – each other. Fortunately for us, that translated to a wider audience.

What’s the message of the show?

Williams: The message of the show is to be yourself. And if you can’t be yourself, drink enough alcohol to become someone else!

Smith: There is a line near the end of the show where a character reflects on the party, and ponders: “Why do we do this to ourselves? We look like fools and feel like hell, It’s nothing but a song and dance, Let’s give sobriety a chance!” I could say that this was the overriding message of the show, but that would probably be a lie (especially as chorus members respond with an appalled “What?! – No!”)

I guess what the show promotes more than anything, is the inevitability with which awkward and undesirable situations occur, but the importance of being able to laugh at those moments (which, admittedly, may take some time).

Why should readers of AYT come and see the show?

Williams: Because it’s funny, feisty and (perhaps most importantly of all during these harsh economic times) just four pounds! That works out at less than thirty seven pence per song and just over two pence per chortle, four pence per guffaw or seven pence per belly laugh.

Smith: Also, if you’re a young person interested in theatre (which I’ll assume you are, as you’re on this site), then I think the idea of watching a production written by someone of your generation is naturally exciting. Of course, the reality may be different. But I think you should take that gamble.

Part A the Musical plays at the Roundhouse on Sunday 12 May 2013 at 6.40pm as part of the Accidental Festival. Find out more about the show at http://partamusical.wix.com/parta#! or on twitter at https://twitter.com/PartAMusical.

West Yorkshire Playhouse’s season of new work, Transform, is back this year to question what makes great theatre. Subtitled ‘My City, My Leeds’ the project is getting personal to celebrate its roots with performances popping up in unusual spaces across the city, from shopping centres to high rise towers.

I spoke to three of the many artists involved about what they’re bringing to this year’s festival. Helen Goalen and Abbi Greenland of RashDash Theatre were first involved with Transform in 2012 and this year return as an associate company hosting a scratch night for local artists; Alan Lane from Slung Low tells us how his company has been part of Transform as it’s developed over the years; and first-time Transformer Ellie Harrison reveals more about her collaborative, site-based performances, which have taken place in domestic gardens, pubs, clothes shops, derelict churches and roads as well as more conventional theatre spaces…

What kind of work are you creating for the festival?

RashDash: There’ll be some kind of performance element to us hosting the scratch – we’re not sure what yet but it will involve music, song and some weird and wonderful costumes… maybe. We’ll be meeting up with various local artists throughout the week and getting to know them and their work a bit better.

Alan Lane: We are making a show, The Johnny Eck and Dave Toole Show, about Dave Toole, a dancer, and Johnny Eck, the legless Hollywood star of the 1930s. It’s outside in the tilt yard of the Royal Armouries, where they do the jousting. Audiences will sit outside and hear the show through headphones. It’s going to be quite circus-y. Hopefully quite fun. Certainly epic. It, alongside the talents of Dave Toole, features the Oldest Woman in the World and a performance by Ballerina and the Tiny Tiger. Who is a Tiny Tiger.

Ellie Harrison: The Rage Receptacle is an installation for public spaces. For the past three years I’ve been making a sequence of seven projects called The Grief Series. Each part of the series corresponds to a phase of a seven stage grief model. The Rage Receptacle is Part 4 and deals with Anger. Whilst all the projects combine to make the series, each piece very much works on its own. For each part of the series I collaborate with a different artist working in different disciplines. The Rage Receptacle is made in collaboration with sculptor Paula Chambers and architectural designer Bethany Wells. It’s a question of thinking about how an audience move around the space. What they might like to discover and what they might find challenging. It’s also been a process of mining the complex meanings of everyday items. Can the objects we interact with everyday be transformed into sculptures and take on new meanings?

Are there artists or companies who have inspired your practice?

RD: Physically – companies like dot504, rootless root, Gecko and Do Theatre. Music wise – cabaret artists like Meow Meow, Amanda Palmer, and world music with eastern scales, epic harmonies and lots of big drumming.

AL: Dave Toole has inspired my practice, really, Google him now – he’s extraordinary. I was very inspired by the opening of last year’s Paralympics and the work of the directors Jenny Sealey and Bradley Hemmings. And beyond that Robert Le Page, Robbie Williams and Amy Letman [curator of Transform].

EH: Bobby Baker’s playful approach to difficult topics has had a huge impact on my work. Whilst The Grief Series talks about difficult things, it does so in an accessible and playful way. Turner prize-winning artist Jeremy Dellers’s work has been a huge inspiration for this project, combining contemporary art with an openness and warmth.

What does theatre mean to you?

RD: An experience that’s live, transient and unrepeatable. When it’s at its best it moves you deeply and lingers in your head. Something that speaks to your body as well as your brain – your whole being. Something that speaks about the world we live in now.

AL: Coming together with your fellow man to try and further understand the relentless joy and misery of being alive in this moment right now. Also blowing stuff up and playing music at the right moment so that people feel proper sad.

EH: Oddly enough it’s not a word I use all that often. There is such a wealth of different performance practices, some of which can be housed within a theatre building and some of which can’t and shouldn’t be because it would rob the work of what makes it wonderful. I think the key is to see a greater level of communication between people making different kinds of performance, from plays to performance art. I hope that Transform Festival is helping to bring these different people together and that audiences will see something they might not have tried before.

What’s it like taking inspiration from a city when creating new work?

RD: Because Leeds is the city we’re based in and have lived in for years, she is always part of process in some way. It’s not as explicit as thinking about Leeds and then making a show. We feel like our identity as a company is wrapped up in the experience, sights and smells of Leeds.

The scratch will take place in the front of house space, or – The Playground – as it’s being known for Transform. There’s no captive audience and hopefully the bar will be busy and buzzing. Its not an an usual space for performance, but a different kind of audience and atmosphere to tackle.

AL: Every city is different so we spend a lot of time working out the best type of show for that particular city. We are lucky that Leeds is our home city, we’ve wanted to make this type of show here for a while. Leeds is going through a real boost at the moment – Trinity Shopping Centre opened recently to much national applause, the City Council is much more robust and confident than similar city councils – but it still has issues reconciling this bright future with its past. That’s very interesting to explore.

EH: I think it’s something I always do and as I live in Leeds, it is often this city
that informs the work I make. Bethany [Wells] remarked that what we have made draws on Leeds as a landscape in quite a nuanced way and actually, perhaps the fact that I live here makes me less sensitive to that. I have a huge amount of civic pride for Leeds given that I grew up down south and now I can’t imagine moving anywhere else. Without clinging to the cliché that people are friendlier up north, there is an honesty and pragmatism here, whether people are being nice or not and I really value that.

What can audiences expect from your performance?

RD: A trio of weird women playing some fun tunes… But we’re making it all this week so it’s as much a mystery to us as yet…

AL: A Freak Show gone wrong. A tribute gone wrong. And hopefully by the end they’ll know who Dave Toole and Johnny Eck are and why they are important.

EH: That sense of the live, of sharing space and time with the performer and the rest of the crowd is something film and television just can’t compete with. For this reason I’m interested in how theatre can make ‘liveness’ central to the experience in the way that football and live music does.

A moment of quiet self reflection as a break from the bustle of the city. But different audiences will have different expectations. There will be people who have seen the work in the brochure or are familiar with The Grief Series and they will have a completely different set of expectations to an accidental audience who just happen across it on the street. I hope it will be some people’s first experience of installation, whether they are young children, people who might not experience arts activity, or seasoned theatre goers who are feeling adventurous and want to try something new.

For details of all three performances and the rest of the Transform programme – and to buy tickets – visit http://www.wyp.org.uk/what’s-on/2013/transform-my-leeds-my-city/.

Image 1: RashDash

Image 2: Ellie Harrison’s Ettiquette of Grief

Image 3: Alan Lane

This month Emma Jane Denly speaks to Tom Penn of Little Bulb Theatre, who are currently in residence at the Battersea Arts Centre. She plays devil‘s advocate with the question of music’s purpose in theatre…

TP: Music is one of the most powerful means of communication we possess. It has the power to overwhelm and to be delicate, to sentimentalise and to be ironic. When used with due care and attention, it has the faculty to transcend immediate thought, and access a deeper, often surprisingly emotional, response. An enormous amount of my time is spent accompanied by music, be it the ‘soundtrack to my life’ that happens to be buzzing around inside my head at the time, or the more tangible mp3 player, squeezing the same old songs into my ears as I board the 345 to Peckham. Why? Because I enjoy my life more when there is music playing. Subsequently I find it difficult, perhaps impossible, to imagine a reason I would have for not including music in my work in theatre.

EJD: Perhaps there’s a case for arguing that music has the power to distract as well as complement, in both your own life and indeed in theatrical productions. Pick the wrong song and the effect can be as small as creating a slightly jarring scene on-stage that doesn’t fit with the rest of the show or as large as being totally alienating for an audience. You wake up and accidentally play one of Enya’s less upbeat tracks through your headphones: rest of the day is then potentially overshadowed by a sense of depressive doom (no offence intended to Enya). Play a rock song in the middle of a show, and all delicacy is sent crashing to the floor. If these effects are intended, then fair enough, but isn’t all music subjective? How can you make an entire audience react in the same way?

TP: I’m not sure that you can, but I certainly don’t see that as a consideration to be taken only with music. I would suggest that any aspect of any theatre show will be viewed subjectively, and therefore it is the theatre-maker’s responsibility to understand and appreciate this, whilst using everything they have at their disposal in order to best serve the moment. When approaching a new piece of work, you come armed with your full toolkit, and you try your best to use those tools wisely. Music is just one of the means we have with which to communicate, and is as valuable to the process as any other. It comes hand in hand with the text, or the movement, or the design – there is no reason one should be separated of given greater significance than the others. If given careful thought and artistically driven, the music will form as vital part of any narrative or atmosphere as any other discipline.

EJD: Do you think then that this kind of music is different to the “conventional” type – and I use this phrase carefully, meaning only music that is not intended for narrative effect – or whether it is the same as something that we can buy or listen to on its own terms? It’s almost as though you are implying that music in theatre is a precise and exact science (the same way perhaps lighting or choreography can be viewed as such), which could make it seem artificial – or failing that then at least oppressed in some way. Do you think that theatre-music is its own art-form – or could it be listened to in the same way as Queen, Fairport Convention or – yes, I’m going there – Enya?

TP: I don’t think that an exact science exists for making music or any kind of theatre. I think there are guidelines available if you want them, but once you get past a certain point, you’re out there on your own. You try something different, something new, in the hope that it will be what you want it to be, and then as long as you learn a little bit each time, you’ll be ready to have another go soon enough. As for whether theatre music is its own art form, I’m not so certain that it can be categorised that neatly. Yes, when used for a specific purpose in a piece of theatre, that music must be precisely what was asked for and needed in that moment, whether newly composed or a well-known classic. But that’s not to say it doesn’t retain individual worth when removed from context. Take Kneehigh‘s ‘Don John’ Soundtrack – I can’t get enough of those tracks still, however many years later. I know the scores and soundtracks to countless films and shows I haven’t seen. I adore the music, and that’s it. Ultimately, in the context of the show or film itself, if that music does not serve the very moment for which it was intended, then it hasn’t fulfilled its purpose, and the final product was probably weaker for it. But there’s nothing to stop me from enjoying it separately – much like I can be satisfied, impressed and even moved by the way natural lighting occurs within a particular environment at any point in my day, music serves a multitude of purposes. Its use in theatre should be treated with the same thought and precision as every other aspect of the production, and when it works, it has the ability to colour and to lift that moment to an altogether new height. The rest of the time, it should just be worth listening to.

EJD: So theatre-music is perhaps just made to fit its definition by the selection process: the artistry lies in the ability of the theatre-maker to select and refine a piece of music for a particular theatrical moment that is utterly appropriate. I’m sure the wave of other companies who take music in theatre very seriously – Kneehigh, RashDash, Third Angel – would be inclined to agree.

Little Bulb Theatre’s Orpheus runs at BAC from 16 April – 11 May, and Tom is performing his solo work at Cambridge Junction’s SAMPLED Festival on Sunday 5 May.

Image: Headphone Throw Pillow

Jonathan McGuinness plays numerous roles in Vesturport’s reinvention of Kafka’s literary masterpiece, Metamorphosis. Complete with gymnastics and a spectacular set, this highly physical adaptation has been playing  at the Lyric Theatre in Hammersmith, on its third London outing since the original sell-out tour in 2006. Having reached the end of its run, McGuinness reflects on his experiences of both the play and working with the Icelandic company Vesturport.

Metamorphosis itself begins with Gregor Samsa waking to find himself transformed into an unspecified type of creature. His family are, understandably, horrified. But for McGuinness, it wasn’t the story alone that drew him to this production: “Initially what excited me was the opportunity to be working with Vestuport: learning about the way they work, rather than the specific roles,” he explains. “When I first met them, the script wasn’t even finalised. I knew what the parts were, but these parts changed quite a lot during rehearsals.”

Companies wishing to stage adaptations of Kafka’s German novels generally use English translations of the original text, or do their own interpretation of the German text. “David and Gisli [Farr and Örn Gardarsson, the directors] essentially worked from English translations, however they did look at the opening lines quite a lot.” These “opening lines” have caused debate amongst numerous translators and today there are still two different versions of these lines. The first states: “As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a monstrous vermin”. However, the term “monstrous vermin” becomes “gigantic insect” in the other most common version, as translators dispute which is closer to Kafka’s German term, “verwandelt”.  Because of the difficulty of this translation, McGuinness explains that “[Vesturport] didn’t want to specify what the creature Gregor transforms into was. We had quite a lot of debate about how to stage this, wondering whether we would have some sort of costume to represent his transformation, for example. In the end, we settled on not doing any of that, instead, leaving it to the audience’s imagination.”

Although the book is called Metamorphosis, McGuinness points out that Gregor has transformed before the play actually begins. “What you see in the play and what you read in the book is actually the metamorphosis of everyone else around him – how they react to his changing. So we thought that to have a big, buggy costume would just look a bit ridiculous in the end.” I suggest that with Gregor’s movements, jumps and swings across the walls appearing so uncannily insect-esque, a costume hardly seems needed somehow. “We decided it was better for him to dress normally whilst everyone else reacts as if he has changed into something repulsive,” McGuinness agrees.

With regards to other decisions of what to use from the novel, McGuinness recalls, “From the English translation we came up with a storyboard of scenes that they wanted in the play, then wrote the scenes up and chopped and changed those quite a lot in rehearsals, playing around with the order they came in, so it became its own thing once we were in rehearsals… They amalgamated some moments in the book and added a couple of scenes that aren’t in the book. For example, there’s a scene where all the family have dinner together, which isn’t in the book but it seemed to be the only way we could get everyone to interact together in one moment.”

Vesturport are no strangers to staging physical theatre, and perhaps it’s therefore not surprising they chose to create their own reinvention of Kafka’s Metamorphosis, as opposed to staging Steven Berkoff’s adaptation. “Gisli, the Artistic Director, had represented Iceland as a gymnast when he was young, so the physical nature of the play, the circus style and aerial work, were key to his vision,” explains McGuinness. “David Farr, who was then the Artistic Director at The Lyric, wanted to work with Gisli and he suggested Metamorphosis, which Gisli liked the idea of, so they settled on it.” Vesturport’s artistic vision and set design are original, too. “Gisli’s initial ideas for how to stage the play was formed around his vision of the set – one room on top of another, with the top room flipped 90 degrees, so that the furniture appears to be  on the wall – was one of the primary ideas. The other artistic decisions were formed around that.”

Metamorphosis was originally published in 1915, and so it would have been understandable for Vesturport to have chosen to highlight different elements of the story, to make it accessible and enjoyable for a modern day audience. However, McGuinness insists, “Metamorphosis is a classic novel in that it’s open to your own interpretation, and anyone who has felt like a bit of an outsider at some point in their lives, or a bit misunderstood or ignored, can relate to it”. Recalling the first read-through, he tells me: ”I was amazed to find it had been published in 1915. It’s a really old piece and yet it still feels quite modern.” For McGuinness and many others, Metamorphosis has a timeless quality. “What I find interesting when we talk to audiences is that a lot of teenagers in young audiences relate to it, because essentially, Metamorphosis depicts the story of a young guy, in his bedroom, going through changes whilst no-one understands him.” Likening the play to ”an average teenager’s story”, McGuinness describes the “lack of communication” Gregor has with his family and others around him, as a process common to many teenagers.

In terms of style, McGuinness explains that, after lengthy discussions in rehearsals, Vesturport chose to use a slightly heightened Gothic style for their production. He recalls that there was a consensus amongst all involved to draw out and emphasise the humour of the play, too. “The story is quite abstract and there’s a lot about it which is quite comedic. We wanted to draw out that element of humour and sharpen the contrast with the darker elements, making the two quite extreme in opposition to one another.” Indeed, once you have laughed at Gregor’s father chasing and swatting him with a newspaper, you cannot help but feel a deep pain for him, as he is slowly dying, whilst his family, unable to understand him, continue to shut him out of their lives.

The basis of Kafka’s novel is an interior monologue of Gregor’s thoughts, and transforming these internal musings into a play that gives both dialogue and perspective to other characters was a challenge Vesturport had to overcome. McGuinness explains, “To stage the play, we had to turn these thoughts into a dialogue between the various characters. In turn, this meant we had to bring other characters to the fore a bit more than they originally were in Kafka’s novel and concentrate on the family dynamic, rather than Gregor’s mind.”

Music is inherent in this production, with a score written and produced by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis, another element that makes their production differ from those preceding it. “Warren Ellis was often in rehearsals with us and from that he wrote a sound scape to play throughout most of the show, making it almost filmic, and that’s something which is not always done in theatre – a lot of productions use less music.” For McGuinness, the experimenting with styles and looking beyond the boundaries of Berkoff’s adaptation, also played an important role: “We played around with lots of different styles in rehearsals, from doing bits completely naturalistically to completely over the top.” The most emotional aspects of the play truly emerge in the final scenes with an accompanying song written by Musical Director Nick Cave. “The sun’s rising and everything feels quite different again. We found people were quite affected by that.” At this moment, Gregor is left hanging upside down from a red rope, as if underground, whilst his parents smile and push his sister on a swing in the garden above. “The audience are thrown so fast between the humour and the tragedy of the play. Like life, it’s not black and white.”

Vesturport’s Metamorphosis played at the Lyric Hammersmith in February and is now on tour, visiting international venues. For more information, visit http://vesturport.com/theater/metamorphosis-hamskiptin/.

Image credit: Vesturport