random / generations A double bill of plays by debbie tucker green
WELCOME
We are also pleased to welcome Tinuke Craig, making her Chichester debut, to direct both plays. A graduate of Sussex University, Tinuke won the 2014 Genesis Future Director Award and was Associate Director at the Gate Theatre 2015-2016.
DANIEL EVANS AND RACHEL TACKLEY PHOTOGRAPH BY TOBIAS KEY
Welcome to random and generations, two fierce and haunting dramas by debbie tucker green. Seen together for the first time, these two plays explore the timeless and universal theme of grief and how we face the loss of those we love, through the lives of two families on two continents. We are delighted to be bringing debbie tucker green’s work to Chichester for the first time. Undoubtedly one of contemporary theatre’s most powerful and acclaimed voices, she won the Olivier Award for Most Promising Newcomer in 2004 for born bad and the 2012 BAFTA Award for Best Single Drama for the television version of random; and today her work is regularly performed around the world. debbie’s latest play premieres at the Royal Court later this year.
We would love it if you could join us in the Festival Theatre Foyer on Saturday 26 May at 11am, to appreciate a series of visual poems inspired by some of the themes from random and generations. This work is the culmination of a film project devised, written, directed, produced and performed by local young people around the theme of trouble. The Art of Trouble stares our modern world hard in the face with bright, fresh eyes. There are five hugely contrasting plays to come in the Minerva this season – two remarkable world premieres as well as classic and contemporary revivals – and we hope you can join us for those too.
Artistic Director Daniel Evans
cft.org.uk
Executive Director Rachel Tackley
COMING SOON
Gerald Kyd Lydia Leonard Jean St Clair
THE MEETING A new play by Charlotte Jones
This powerful new play from Charlotte Jones is a spellbinding exploration of the timeless challenges of bringing the truth to light. The cast led by Gerald Kyd, Lydia Leonard and Jean St Clair is directed by Natalie Abrahami.
WORLD PREMIERE 13 July – 11 August #TheMeeting
cft.org.uk
COMING SOON
COCK By Mike Bartlett Kate Hewitt directs this funny and eye-openingly fresh and frank play. Written by Mike Bartlett (King Charles III, Doctor Foster), Cock is a provocative peep into relationships in these days of oscillating identities.
28 September – 27 October #CockThePlay
cft.org.uk
Contains very strong language and scenes of a sexual nature. Ages 16+
TH E CAFÉ & THE FOYLE TERRACE The Café in the Festival Theatre is open daily from 10am serving freshly made sandwiches, soup, cakes and pastries. Enjoy our barista coffee or choose from a range of hot and cold drinks including wines and beers. The Café is light and airy and offers al fresco seating and free Wi-Fi. The Bar and The Foyle Terrace in the Festival Theatre are open 90 minutes before the show and both serve a selection of locally produced spirits, beers, lagers and wine by the glass or the bottle. The Foyle Terrace also serves pizzas, quiches, jacket potatoes and salads before the show.
The Brasserie in the Minerva Theatre is open for pre-show dining in new stylish and elegant surroundings. The restaurant serves a contemporary British menu using local and seasonal ingredients as well as an excellent choice of wines. Open 12.30pm - 2.30pm on matinee days and from 5.30pm for evening performances.
Enjoy either a main meal or one of our lighter food options before or after the show in the Minerva Bar & Grill upstairs, which offers a more relaxed atmosphere. Open 90 minutes before matinee performances, from 5pm for evening performances, during the interval and post-show.
RESERVATIONS
To reserve a table in the Brasserie or Minerva Bar & Grill visit cft.org.uk/dining for online reservations. Alternatively please call 01243 782219 or email dining@cft.org.uk
random / generations A double bill of plays by debbie tucker green
GOING SOLO Dr Misri Dey looks at the past, present and future of solo performances
Imagine finding a performance flyer:
‘A Lecture upon Heads’, including: ‘Humorous Oration in Praise of the Law, Nobody’s, Somebody’s, Anybody’s and Everybody’s... Family of Nobody’s’.
You might think this is a contemporary satirical piece of stand-up, or an experimental performance lecture, or a spoken-word performance. It is, in fact, from a solo theatre piece by George Alexander Stevens called ‘The celebrated LECTURE on HEADS’, dating back to the 18th century. It was both transgressive and hugely popular, being PETRA LETANG
a biting satirical critique of Western colonialism dressed up as pioneering bravery through the lauded figure of Alexander the Great. Stevens went on to perform this piece 1000 times across England and Europe, and yet at that time, solo work was not officially sanctioned as lawful performance. Only two theatre companies were licensed to perform, working in theatres chartered by the King under royal patent: The Theatre Royal (later Drury Lane) and its rival, Lincoln’s Inn Fields. So, Stevens and his colleagues such as Samuel Foote worked around this by performing at unusual times in the day, or turning it into a social event: ‘come and drink a dish of
chocolate’ while the performance went on. Solo performance has long continued this tradition of both entrepreneurial and challenging practice, providing a platform for devisers or playwrights to act as ciphers, engaging with the pressing, current issues of their times. random is one such play. Solo performance has a long history of maverick practice, involving challenging the status quo. Examples abound, as in the aforementioned work of Stevens and Foote in 18th century England, through to the long lasting ‘freak’ shows of Fayres and circuses, questioning the borders between what it is to be a man or woman, animal or human. Victorian music hall performance attracted ‘acts’ like Harry Relph’s Little Tich in 1867 – a very small man in very large boots. In Europe, Josephine Baker and her parody of the native women dancing in a banana skirt challenged audiences at the Folies Bergère in the early 1920s; numerous performance artists like Marina Abramovic, Chris Burden and Bobby Baker carried out durational and endurance
feats in the early 60s and 70s in the USA and UK. One infamous example is circus performer Philippe Petit, who stretched a trapeze wire across the Twin Towers and walked out between them, inviting the awe of the viewers watching below even as he was arrested and then later released. The list goes on.
The monologue has a long shape-shifting history In a theatre context, the term ‘solo’ usually conjures up an image of a lone figure, in a spotlight, communicating to an audience through monologue: perhaps stand-up comedy, monodrama, or spoken word poetry. In our era of inter-connectedness, ably facilitated by the internet and popular media, we know however that ‘solo’, as a state of being, is a seductive illusion, an ‘as if’ alone, as we contain the echoes and influences of our teachers,