Wish I could fly to Cornwall in an instant for some natural inspiration.
I am on Broadway and surrounded by high and grey building, a trip to Central Park is necessary for greenery and flowers.
Inspiration is different here and people approach theatre from another angle.
If only the Hall were closer...
Magis Theatre keeps me sane:
http://www.magistheatre.org/
Anna
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Added by Anna Lindgren on May 26, 2009 at 12:12pm —
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Some of you might be thinking it has all gone a bit too quiet on the blog front. What has happened to Barabas?
Hopefully you’ve managed to catch up with all the progress in the printed press – from the glossy feature in Inside Cornwall, to an appearance in the theatre picks section in The Guardian on Saturday. Not to mention the huge billboard outside Truro train station – impossible to miss!
After their three week stint over at the TA Centre, where Anna whipped them into shape, the company mo…
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Added by Frances Macadam on September 24, 2008 at 11:32am —
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I’ve just had a week off, making the most of the fabulous summer weather (well you have to think positive). It was good, despite the Rain (capital R), to recharge my batteries a bit, have some time away from the busy roads, and a bit of space to see loved ones and walk on the beach and up the hills with the dogs (in the rain, again, and again).
It’s almost impossible to keep your mind off the job in hard, though; it’s like an itch. During the course of the week I read Charles Nicholls’s excelle…
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Added by Anna Coombs on August 20, 2008 at 4:31pm —
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It’s extraordinarily nasty weather, real autumn weather, even though it’s August. This, plus the sudden increase in traffic due to the holiday season, has made my 60-mile-a-day commute pretty hair-raising. I’ve started to mitigate the tedium, not to mention the danger, of being stuck on a dual carriageway behind cars going at a dogged 30, or alleviating the slowness of being caught behind a combine harvester by developing a new specialist subject – tractors.
I’m not quite sure when it all start…
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Added by Anna Coombs on August 11, 2008 at 9:48am —
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I’ve been suffering from a terrible attack of ‘pre-match nerves’ over the last few days. It’s something to do with having had more time than normal to prepare for this production, which means there’s too much time to think (navel-gazing). There is nothing to be nervous about – all creative aspects are well in hand – but over the weekend my nerves reached a kind of jangling point.
On Saturday evening, in the mist and the rain, we took the dogs for a long walk; it never ceases to amaze how much o…
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Added by Anna Coombs on August 6, 2008 at 5:40pm —
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I’ve spent a large part of this week squashed (or standing) on the train to and from London, where I’ve been to see Dominic Dromgoole’s KING LEAR, in which Joseph is playing Gloucester, over at Shakespeare’s Globe.
Unlike Cornwall, which has been wet and windy, London was basking in sunshine – and with a bare 20 minutes to dump my laptop and overnight things, I raced off to The South Bank to meet Colin and see the show.
I love The Globe. Dominic’s doing a great job to widen the creative vision…
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Added by Anna Coombs on August 1, 2008 at 3:07pm —
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I’m not quite sure how, but I seem to have taken it upon myself to become a song writer. Actually, that’s a joke; I have two friends who are brilliant singer-songwriters and I know how difficult it is and have the greatest respect for a job I’d never have the guts (or skills) to do. But I’ve been experimenting with song lyrics for BARABAS.
Some time ago, when Phil and I were starting to map the musical complexion of our play, we had an instinct that whilst they are not written in to the origina…
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Added by Anna Coombs on July 29, 2008 at 10:11am —
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I’ve just come back from a week’s holiday, most of which was spent sleeping. It’s been pretty hectic here, what with fruition points for our new writing projects DAWN CHORUS and bricks & mortar, final castings, designs, costumes…
And we’ve been going for it hammer and tongs all week. Monday morning, first day back, straight into meetings at 10am and no break until I walked over to the theatre to meet Colin, who arrived with the HUGE model box at 2pm. At 11pm we were still working, discussin…
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Added by Anna Coombs on July 22, 2008 at 9:57am —
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I’ve just started reading Machiavelli’s THE PRINCE. It must have been a book that Marlowe was very familiar with – by reputation if not on the printing press itself.
Machiavelli was an Italian diplomat, political philosopher, musician, poet and playwright; a central figure of the Italian Renaissance – particularly in politics. He is best known for his treatises on realist political theory and he considered The Prince, to be his Magnum opus. He also wrote on republicanism (Discourses on Livy).…
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Added by Anna Coombs on July 15, 2008 at 3:27pm —
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I’ve just had a long phone conversation with Juha Marsalo, who is working with me on the physical action for BARABAS. We coined the phrase ‘physical action’ because somehow ‘fight director’ or ‘choreographer’; both feel wrong. Maybe because Juha is a bit of a one-off fantastic dance artist and movement expert, he has worked extensively for his own company and with Wim Vanderkeybus and Ultima Vez.
We first met in 2002, and as soon as this opportunity came up, I hoped he would be able to take on…
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Added by Anna Coombs on July 3, 2008 at 2:24pm —
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I’ve just come away form a wonderful workshop session as part of bricks & mortar, the year-long playwriting project we have initiated with sixteen playwrights from across the region. They are working with a team of international artists to challenge and develop their individual approaches to making plays. The project also addresses the impact of individual life experiences in an international context. Each writer, for example, is conducting a piece of research about a culture they have no kn…
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Added by Anna Coombs on July 1, 2008 at 1:00pm —
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I’m on the way back from London and a long meeting with Colin Falconer; he’s designing both set and costumes for our production. We are a great team, and enjoy working together. But the physical distance between Colin’s base in Walthamstow and my base in west Cornwall means that time is often pressured. Yesterday we did a 13-hour stint working on the play, with a brief break for lunch! I think we were both on our knees by the end…
Putting a set together is a complicated job in itself, but this…
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Added by Anna Coombs on June 20, 2008 at 3:43pm —
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I’m on the London train again, which, if the journey is on time, will mean I’ve done a grand total of 21 hours of train travel, and 10 hours of driving since last Monday morning (six days). And that’s on top of a ‘normal’ working week…
When colleagues come down to visit they always rave about the journey and the view, but it’s beginning to get monotonous. Truro is the same distance from London as Leeds, but there is no fast train; door to door, it takes me around 7 hours (you can get to Leeds i…
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Added by Anna Coombs on June 16, 2008 at 4:24pm —
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In the same way, it’s one of the hardest plays I’ve ever worked on a design for, and I’ve ever worked with a composer on. It’s just so open – the choices are infinite. Delineating the characters is an incredibly broad process, and it is starting to do my head in.
So where to start? It is very important to us that we have an ensemble of actors from around the world, working with artists that live permanently in Cornwall. That way, both can feed off each other, and we can all learn new skills.
T…
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Added by Anna Coombs on June 10, 2008 at 3:58pm —
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I’ve never been to St Nicholas, or looked at the plaque on the wall of the church which is all that’s there to commemorate Marlowe’s unmarked grave. I keep meaning to go, but somehow there is always an excuse…or perhaps it’s just that I don’t want to.
No fancy tombstone for Kit, no big memorial. It seems both apt and strangely sad. And today, on the anniversary of his death, there is no real way of working out why he died, or how he died, although scholars have done their best.
Marlowe grew up…
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Added by Anna Coombs on May 30, 2008 at 1:40pm —
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A few weeks back I have a surprising phone conversation with somebody who wanted to question the moral nature of BARABAS. The caller hadn’t heard of Marlowe, so I suggested that DOCTOR FAUSTUS might be a useful starting point (a bit naughty) and the caller expostulated about the way that Jerry Springer – The Opera had alienated and offended the majority of the general public (quite frankly, not true).
Actually, I think it is great that people are ringing up to ask about this controversial produ…
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Added by Anna Coombs on May 27, 2008 at 11:44am —
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It’s been a pretty frantic fortnight. Last week we welcomed Shared Experience to Cornwall for the first time ever with their epic two-part touring production of WAR AND PEACE.
During the course of the visit, the company’s Co-Artistic Director, Nancy Meckler, came to work with a group of our associate artists for a morning to share something of her work and the Company’s process.
It was a great session. In particular I enjoyed seeing another director at work – a rarity. It’s very difficult to g…
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Added by Anna Coombs on April 17, 2008 at 11:18am —
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Okay I admit it – last week I nearly killed my boss. No, it wasn’t a confrontation; Tim and I get on brilliantly - we are a close team. It was in a car. We were bowling along between Truro and St Austell (me driving). For some reason we were traversing a pretty narrow lane when he pointed out a house owned by a friend of ours, nestling in the distant hills. I braked, and swerved, and no harm was done. Thank God.
This is not an isolated incident – Tim was the only person brave enough to be a pas…
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Added by Anna Coombs on April 14, 2008 at 11:53am —
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So why BARABAS, The Jew of Malta?
I think it’s because people are a little bit scared of it.
Marlowe as a writer, and as a person, is ‘difficult’. The play is a challenge. It’s not easy.
But there’s something about it...
It is both dangerous and tremendously funny. It runs at a cracking pace. It is wild. It is naughty - very. It was one of the most performed plays of its time. Whenever staged, it made its audience laugh. By laughing, audiences are drawn in to the appalling web of intrigue th…
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Added by Anna Coombs on March 28, 2008 at 3:07pm —
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Deciding ‘which play’ doesn’t come easy. It’s right up there with buying a house, starting a new job. This might sounds strange but from my point of view you’re committing to something pretty big – after all it’s a case of spending most of your time with the play, month after month. A bit like being in love, there’s this THING that fills – in some guise or other – most of your waking thoughts, and some of your dreams...
Initially we thought hard about producing a new play by one of the many tal…
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Added by Anna Coombs on March 18, 2008 at 4:31pm —
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Theatre in the world
Barabas is fast approaching...
Screw your courage to the sticking post, and we’ll not fail.
