Breaking away from The Nuffield

Hi! Even though I had the idea for this blog a few weeks ago, I haven't got round to writing on it myself until now! Well, I've been busy to be fair! I'm Katie and I'm one of the student ambassadors for the Nuffield Theatre and LICA Public Arts in general. As a second year theatre studies student, the Nuffield has a very special place in my heart and I am very enthusiastic about the line up of shows this term and have already seen some awesome stuff especially 'Tough time, nice time' by Ridiculusmus last night. I was also fortunate enough to meet the two performers earlier in the day and got a different perspective on the two naked Germans in the bath!
So here is my little write up about some of the recent Nuff Stuff!

We’re only just beginning an exciting year at the Nuffield theatre but already it has presented three productions which were not actually in the Nuffield! This is an unusual venture, with the aim of spreading the arts around the campus and town.

The Soldier’s Song by Quarantine

In particular a recent piece that aimed to stretch out across campus, was The Soldier’s Song by Manchester based company Quarantine. This piece involved a touring karaoke booth, in the Management School for two days and then in town for two days, where anyone could step in alone, in pairs or threes, and choose a song to sing from a list. But this was not ordinary karaoke. The audience were accompanying a currently serving soldier to their favourite karaoke track. As a massive karaoke enthusiast I’m personally gutted I didn’t get chance to go and see this, but the response was really good – the audience enjoyed the novelty of the experience and also had the chance to think about what it all meant. Maybe it showed soldiers in a different light to the way we see them in the news. Maybe they felt more of a connection to the armed forces than they had previously. Something that some of my friends said was that it might work better with a live video feed of the soldiers singing, to feel more of a connection. Probably true, but I would have thought that currently serving soldiers are fairly busy and can’t really have karaoke video conferences with us lot whenever they get the urge!
The booth was in the Management school for 2 days and in town for 2 days.
Quarantine will be presenting their next show ‘Make’believe’ on the 24th and 25th November this year at the Nuffield.

Ringside by Mem Morrison

I recently took part in this show at the town hall, Mem’s personal piece about Turkish Cypriot family weddings, and feeling the pressure to get married.
Taking part in workshops for the week leading up to the performances with Mem and my fellow ‘brides’ was time consuming but a good laugh as we all made friends and worked together to bring the show, which has previously taken place in London and Edinburgh, to life in Lancaster.
The feeling of the show aimed to recreate a real wedding, with tables set with white tablecloths and the audience, invited in as wedding guests, given a red carnation pinned to them and asked to take part in a family photograph. Once seated they put on headsets through which they would listen to all the sounds of the performance – pre-recorded and some from a live microphone on Mem’s tie.
The role of the local women playing brides was to set up the idea of Mem’s fantasy wedding, an illusion was created to suggest that we could just have been in his imagination. We all wore black and white wedding outfits with high heels – which we regretted many times! We set the wedding tables with plates, glasses and flowers, which had all been screen-printed on white boxes.
There was a scene where all the women opened the flower boxes and took out big white plastic sheets, which we had about 2 minutes to fashion wedding dressings and veils out of, while dancing! The rehearsals for this were always amusing, and our dresses came out totally different every time! Luckily, on the performances, they held together but our next job was to get an audience member to slow dance with us. The idea was to completely ignore them and make them feel uncomfortable, which makes you feel bad enough, but on the second night my partner decided to have a chat with me and tried to make me smile at him, coming out with lines like ‘Do you come here often?’. Of course I stayed professional… although I was desperate to laugh!
Although there were funny and lighthearted moments, the piece confronted some serious issues about Turkish weddings and about Mem’s feelings, but the balance between these things made the piece work well.
The audience response was really positive, and people who came to the show enjoyed the feeling of being waited on!
I’m glad I took part although I’d have loved to see the show from the audience’s perspective. It was a good experience to put on my CV although it wasn’t so good for my feet!!

The Future of Death by A2

Last weekend I went to see the A2 Company present their production ‘The Future of Death’, at the Storey Gallery in Lancaster. This piece tackled the idea of death and burials in a very sensitive way. It was aesthetically exactly what I expected, local people walking out silently and burying themselves and each other in earth, although to be honest I didn’t think I would enjoy it as much as I did. I liked watching the people and thinking about their individual stories and different relationships that were suggested. There were no words in the piece until the end, where questions were directed at the audience, such as ‘when does the beginning suddenly appear?’ and ‘how much does a medium sized headstone cost?’ getting the audience to have a think about death and try to answer the questions for themselves. I found it very relaxing and although it’s not the sort of thing I would go out of my way to see, I could see how it might give people comfort and feel more connected rather than all alone with the idea of death. I would have taken part in this show if I could but I was busy with Ringside – I could have swapped the high heels for covering myself in dirt!

Nuff' Said!
Katie x