By the Bog of Cats

Published
by
EllieBradbury
 on May 26, 2009
 in 2009 and By The Bog of Cats
. 1 Comment

Still alarmingly haunted by Rosie’s song By the Bog of Cats, it has taken me a couple of days to write this. I wasn’t sure what to expect prior to seeing the play and walking in to the dimly lit studio, I still wasn’t sure. Against a backdrop of tatty old caravan, a line of children’s clothing drying in the bleak wind and a knackered set of garden furniture, the atmosphere was haunting, spooky and poignantly sad. Automatically you knew this was going to be a dark play with sorrow and tragedy from the outset. Before even a word was said, Sarah and I were in tears. The opening song was truly beautiful.

Katie who played Hester Swaine was marvellous. As a deeply troubled young woman trying to do right by her daughter, the audience was overcome with understanding for her plight and sympathy for her heartbreak. And Rosie who played Josie, Hester’s daughter, was beyond talented. I was bowled over by how real her innocence was, she was magnificent. For a young girl working with such difficult subject matter, you might imagine her resolve to falter somewhat but no, she made you believe, she enveloped you in her childlike innocence and eagerness to please. She was truly captivating. This of course made the ending so much harder to bear and so much more real.

However there was some light relief ever so periodically with the wonderfully played Granny Kilbride. The speech delivered at The Wedding was superbly executed and wonderfully funny. It offered the much needed respite from the rest of this deeply distressing play. Norman’s portrayal of the sozzled priest again provided some gentle comic relief and made for such a great Wedding scene.

Each character, from Caroline to Simon, the ghost to Catwoman, Josie to the deadBlack Wing made for a truly excellent play full of deep sorrow, conflict and misery. If I can stomach more emotion, I shall see it again but for all of those who haven’t seen it, make sure you do but take some tissues…

Boogie Nights photos

Published
by
Andrew Cowie
 on May 18, 2009
 in 2009 and Boogie Nights
. Closed

Graeme Braidwood took some amazing photos at the Boogie Nights tech yesterday. There are more on the Facebook event and on the Crescent main website but here are a few I particularly liked.

By The Bog of Cats, Interview with Katie Edwards

Published
by
SarahMcCaffrey
 on May 14, 2009
 in By The Bog of Cats
. Closed

By the Bog of Cats – Interview with Katie Edwards

Katie as Hester

Katie as Hester

We interviewed crescent member Katie Edwards on what we can expect from By The Bog of Cats, which opens next week.

Q – How would you describe the play in a sentence to those of us who don’t know it?

K – It’s a bit of a mix of old Irish superstition, mysticism and the actions of a wronged woman which ends in horrific tragedy.

Q. You play the leading lady Hester Swaine (previously played by Holly Hunter & Mary Elisabeth Mastrantonio at the Donmar in London) how would you describe the journey of your character ?

K – Hester was abandoned by her mother as a child of about 11. A ghost fancier comes to collect her soul at the beginning of the play but he has come at the wrong time, bit like a grim reaper but more normal spirit (Colin Simmonds). There is mystical significance with her and a black swan who has just died and she is very close to, it had been predicted that she would live as long as the swan.

On top of this Hester has been dumped by Carthage (Simon King), the father of her 11 year old daughter, and she has never gotten over this and is desperate to get him back.

Basically people are trying to get her to leave the Bog of Cats as the land that she lives on in her caravan and house are owned by carthage and Caroline now as she was forced to sign over any hold on the land when she was in a vulnerable state.

Hester is a bit clairvoyant too and is visited by the ghost of her dead brother which gives us further insight into her tragic and somewhat shocking past.

Playing Hester has proved to be extremely challenging and it took me a while to get inside her head.  She is a very complex person ho seems to be emotionally underdeveloped and although being extremely worldly in some ways, she is a lost little girl in others. As a result, she deals with situations she can’t cope with in a very destructive way.

Hester is constantly on the brink of some kind of situation and so in that respect I am unable to ‘chill out’ at any time throughout the whole play. There are so many characters who have some kind of grievance with Hester, or vice-versa, and because of this, the action develops into a car crash that seems inevitable.

Q- Blimey, how do the other characters fit into the play, we heard a rumour about Jo eating mice?

Well Caroline’s Dad (Les Stringer) is a bit of a git and it is hinted at that he may have abused caroline before and been responsible for the death of his own wife and son. Cathage’s mum (Pat Dixon) is a mean woman who is always being nasty to Josie, Hester’s daughter, and hates Hester.

Jo, not eating mice

Jo, not eating mice

Catwoman (Jo Thack) is a clairvoyant and yes eats real mice, but you have to watch the show to see if she does this live on stage! She is also blind, and she tries to warn hester to leave as she knows something awful is going to happen and like Monica (Chrissy Griffiths) they desperately try and reason with hester to leave.

Thanks Katie that’s fantastic, I can’t wait to see it.  With such a gripping plot and a formidable cast I fully expect to be blown away!

Shiny New Huge Boogie Nights Poster

Published
by
EllieBradbury
 on May 12, 2009
 in 2009, Boogie Nights and Marketing
. 1 Comment

Check out the new huge Boogie Nights poster spandangling itself outside the theatre!!

Looking very funky!

boogie_litup

Get into the Groove

Published
by
EllieBradbury
 on May 11, 2009
 in 2009, Boogie Nights and Marketing
. Closed

Full of economic doom and gloom, mass job cuts and blundering MPs claiming back money for their eyeliner, pizzas from Asda and under-floor heating, the start to 2009 has been a bit tough. So what better way to cheer yourself up, stir those seventies senses and quite frankly get your groove on? Well come and get down on the action with Boogie Nights!!

With Deano your supersonic DJ Machine, you can be guaranteed to sing long to at least 50% of the songs throughout the performance! The dance routines will get you ‘boogieing’ in the aisles with the person sitting next to you or just on your own. The smiles will stretch for miles!! With eye-catching colours but eye-watering heights, the platforms will have you hooked, the flares will have you wistfully retuning to the 1970s and the dodgy moustaches will make you want one!!

With so many wonderful and daring costumes taking an airing, the rehearsals are proving to be quite interesting. With some of the characters having up to ten different costume changes, working out how much time they have to actually get into them is imperative!!

Sunday rehearsal provided the opportunity to sing with live music – drums, guitar, bass and the keyboard – as opposed to Gary trying to bash out a big 70s disco classic on an electric piano!! It made the atmosphere feel really alive with vibrancy and vigor!

The early stages of the set are coming along nicely too. The cast has been pretty lucky having been able to have two run-throughs on the main stage already. With the band coming in again on Thursday, there will be the chance to rehearse with live music again with mics and some of the set changes.

It’s fabulous, flare-fuelled fun and simply not to be missed. Get involved, sing along and relive the seventies!!!

bn2bn1

Boogie Nights in rehearsal 1: Last Dance

Published
by
Andrew Cowie
 on May 7, 2009
 in 2009 and Boogie Nights
. 1 Comment

Boogie Nights is in the last couple of weeks before it opens on 22nd May with a Friday night preview so here are some rehearsal clips to give you an idea of what the cast have been working on for the last couple of months.

Here’s the whole cast (plus, briefly, the director and PAs!) rehearsing the Act 1 finale; if you think the cast look good in jeans and T-shirts, wait until you see the frocks!

Boogie Nights in rehearsal 2: Lady Marmalade

Published
by
Andrew Cowie
 on May 7, 2009
 in 2009 and Boogie Nights
. Closed

And this video was shot over several days showing how a number progresses from early note-bashing to setting the movement. Now multiply that by 20 and you’ve got some idea how much work goes into making a show like this look easy!

Boogie Nights: where were you in 1977?

Published
by
Andrew Cowie
 on April 27, 2009
 in 2009 and Boogie Nights
. 6 Comments

Where were you in 1977? I was 21, in my final year at university and out dancing every weekend to disco.

Like all trends, disco suffered a backlash; the clothes were ridiculous and the music was repetitive but that was the point. History may have decided the only cool thing to come out of the 1970s was punk but disco was more radical than people give it credit for. The skinny-white-guys-with-guitars rock band format remained unchanged through 50s skiffle, 60s Beat, 70s punk, 80s new wave, 90s grunge to contemporary rock but disco was something new. You didn’t have to be able to play live, disco was about records so if you could programme that thud-thud-thud on a drum machine and mix some swirly synths over the top you might have a hit on your hands. Without disco there would have been no rave, no hip hop, no house, no trance and no techno.

And disco was diverse; it included the jazz-funk of Earth Wind and Fire, Philly soul and Motown. It embraced white pop acts like The Bees Gees and Georgio Moroder’s weird German electronica experiments with Donna Summer. It indulged the outrageously camp Sylvester, old-school soul singers like Edwin Starr, the gospel roots of Gladys Knight and the manufactured Euro-pop of Boney M.

By 1979 everyone was doing it and it was time for a change; The Beach Boys had a disco hit and even Paul McCartney and The Rolling Stones had a go but in 1977 disco was the still best party in town. We couldn’t all hang out with Bianca Jagger and Andy Warhol at Studio 54 but we could dance to the same records and that’s exactly what we did!

Soon to be Unrivalled

Published
by
Banners
 on April 24, 2009
 in 2009 and The Rivals
. Closed

There are just three shows to go in the run of The Rivals which finishes tomorrow, and tonight’s performance is once again a sell-out.

For amateur semi-professional actors with the day job to contend with, a run can always become draining. Time vanishes and dishes are left uncleaned, clothes go unwashed – and credit card repayments become overdue (something I only realised this morning, dammit).

Add to that the exhaustion of intense rehearsals we had leading up to opening night, and the number of pre-show bananas being eaten is now rapidly increasing as the show nears the end of its week in the Studio.

Every night has, of course, been different – as our audiences have varied in size and composition. Some have keenly watched in studied silence, others have guffawed and chuckled loudly at even the mildest provocation.

On a whole, our performances too have ranged from understated subtlety to overblown bluster. In between has been a whole lot of hitting the mark – which has been great.

There have been a couple of stumbles, but more often that not, everybody is finding something new every night and improving things just a little more each time. With the cast being sat at the side of the stage, it is a treat to watch new things emerge even now.

In particular, Mrs Malaprop is proving to be comedy gold (just as we knew she would), and Sir Anthony Absolute is coming dangerously close to exploding. Last night (Thurs), I even swear he started dancing at one point(!)

Passion, hilarity, arguments, camaraderie, melancholy, pathos and joy. With three shows to go, The Rivals has already had it all.

And that is just what’s been happening off-stage…

By Bog of Cats – The Art of Subtext

Published
by
GerryLucas
 on April 20, 2009
 in 2009 and By The Bog of Cats
. Closed

Now with just a month to go, By the Bog of Cats is shaping up to be a brilliant piece of theatre. It is a play of some depth and breadth I can tell you!

As a general rule when you start working as a company on a show, it is a pretty rare event to still be finding new things out about the play at this stage . However the discussions about motivations and character interpretation still rage on.

The cast are wonderful and the show is brilliant – so come and see it!