Tuesday 31 July 2012

departures...



PHILADELPHIA, HERE I COME!
by Brian Friel
Donmar Warehouse

Director: Lyndsey Turner
Design: Rob Howell
Lighting: Tim Lutkin
Sound: Christopher Shutt
Composer: Michael Bruce
Photo: Johan Persson

  • departures
  • the design
  • 1964
  • the american dream
  • islands
  • small community boredom
  • aspiration
  • exile and emigration
  • love

Saturday 28 July 2012

curious incident...



THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIME
based on the novel by Mark Haddon
adapted by Simon Stephens
National Theatre: Cottesloe

Director: Marianne Elliot
Design: Bunny Christie
Lighting: Paule Constable
Movement: Scott Graham & Steve Hoggett
Video: Finn Ross
Music: Adrian Sutton
Sound: Ian Dickinson
Fights: Kate Waters


Siobhan: I was wondering if you'd like to make a play out of your book? ...

Christopher: No. It's a book and it's for me and not everybody, just for me. ...

Christopher: No. I don't like acting because it is pretending that something is real when it is not really real at all so it is like a kind of lie.

Siobhan: But people like stories, Christopher. Some people find things which are kind of true in things which are made up. You like your Sherlock Holmes stories and you know Sherlock Holmes isn't a real person, don't you?

Friday 27 July 2012

three invisible things...



LAI CHIH-SHENG
Life-Size Drawing | 2012



SONG DONG
Writing Diary with Water | 1995-Present



MAURIZIO CATTELAN
Untitled (Denucia) | 1991
Police report of stolen invisible artwork
© the artist 2012  - Image courtesy Marian Goodman Gallery


INVISIBLE | Art about the Unseen | 1957 - 2012
Hayward Gallery | Southbank Centre

Tuesday 24 July 2012

the dilemma



THE DOCTOR'S DILEMMA
by George Bernard Shaw
National Theatre: Lyttelton

Director: Nadia Fall
Design: Peter McKintosh
Lighting: Neil Austin
Music: Matthew Scott
Sound: Gregory Clark



Act II: Sir Patrick

"And tell me this. Suppose you had this choice put before you: either to go through life and find all the pictures bad but all the men and women good, or to go through life and find all the pictures good and all the men and women rotten. Which would you choose?"

Thursday 19 July 2012

granny big pants # 3



Scene 12: SILENCE

It is a moment you wish for.
It is a moment you wish in.
At night. In bed. Or in prayer. 
You stay small.
A silent distraction.
Never put me in the silence.
I shall never give up my privilege of words.

Silent with fear.
Silent with tears.
Silence can make someone disappear.

You will find silence in a classroom when the teacher has asked everyone to be quiet.
Or in jail because you are so bored.
Or when you are asleep.
All it can do is stand there waiting.
Waiting to be distracted by excitement and noise.
It can be in a deserted place.

The hush of people.
The hush of words.
Peacefulness.

Some say that silence is deafening. A nightmare.
It is usually made after something bad has happened.
It’s an awkward thing.
Awkward silence. Angry silence. Joyful silence. Peaceful silence.
The world whispers when it ends.
It is a diet from a riot.
A giant silence. A ghost town.
It comes and it goes but it should never stay.
It can last for ever.
Who has the right to end a silence?
A bundle of question marks.

You can’t see it. You can’t feel it.
You can’t hear it. You can’t explain it.
You can see it. You can feel it.
You can hear it. You can explain it.

Silence is what most parents wish for.
It is luxury.
It is expensive.
It is powerful energy.
It is hard to get in our every day lives.
The cars. The buses. The people. The clocks.
Silence makes you concentrate.
No lips moving.
When there is silence it will be the end of the world.

Silence in the court yard.
Silence in the street.
The biggest mouth in the universe
Is just about to speak.

Ssh. Quiet. Bed time. Sleep.
Ssh. Quiet. Night time. Peace.
Ssh. Quiet. Work time. Cease.
Ssh. Quiet. Music time. Listen.
Ssh. Quiet, Prayer time. God.
Ssh. Quiet, Opera time. Watch.

Silence never matters.
You can say it and you can break it.

In some far away corner of the world, and I am not sure anyone knows exactly where, there is pure silence - 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

It is a thin pain/pane of glass which can be broken so easily.
It is a warm blanket which envelops everything.
It is everlasting sleep.
There is no where to run.
A place where no bird sings.
A place where space and time stops altogether.
But I would never want the world to be silent for ever.
It is precious.

No breeze. No shake of the trees. No breath. No voice. No splashing of waves. No screams or shouts.

Nothing.
Nothing is nothing.
Silence is silence.
A form of communication.
Magical. 

Pure. Unknown. Deafening. Confusing. Misunderstood. Not respected. Indescribable. Odd. 

Legendary.

[Junior Drama: aged 8-13 years]

Wednesday 18 July 2012

granny big pants # 2



Scene 11: ALL THE THINGS...

I want to be a Marine Biologist.

I want to stop time!

I want to know when you die.

Be remembered when I die.

Visit everywhere in the world.

I want to be a Scientist.

And an actor.

I want to buy the Empire State Building.

I don’t want to be blown up!

I want to have a huge buffet with five courses at a posh restaurant.

With profiterolls!

I want to marry Justin Bieber, all of One Direction and Cody Simpson.

I want to have a happy family.

With an amazing husband and a perfect baby.

And a perfect house.

I want to go on Come Dine With Me.

I want to be a Comedian and a Writer.

I want to go hand-gliding, mountain climbing, snowboarding, windsurfing, land surfing and skate-boarding.

Be a photojournalist.

I would love to eat a whole tub of toffee honey crunch ice-cream.

I could write a book.

I want to take everything as it comes.

I want to be able to be any animal at any time.

I want to be a bunny rabbit.

I want to be anything.

Surprise me!

When I grow up, old, older, I want to be a cloud. Be me. Float around: singing, drawing, writing for the world. When I grow up, old, older, I don’t want to work as a cloud, I want to be free, everything, my dreams, everything, me!

I want to live in a house with high ceilings and big windows.

I want to be pretty and popular.

I want to get an A* in everything.

I want to be immortal.

I want to be a good witch.

I want to live lavishly.

Go to Paris and sky-dive off the Eiffel Tower.

I want to be made of chocolate so that I can eat myself.

We all want to be made of chocolate!

If they make a Space Hotel, I want to go there.

I don’t know if I want to have children because I know how stressful I can be.

I don’t want to be an accountant, I’m not that good at maths.

I might be an artist.

It would be awesome to have long hair like Rapunzel and swing on it like a monkey swinging on vines.

Maybe I could be a lion or a tiger or a Cheshire Cat.

I want to be a Fashion Designer.

I want to help people.I want to see London, California, New York, Los Angeles, India. Lots of places.

I want to have two, maybe three children. One of each. One boy. Two girls.

I want to be the best.

I don’t want to be afraid.

One day I want to be a vet: to look after animals and help them.

I want to have a horse of my own. Maybe even be a horse.

It would be lovely to get a really good degree at university.

I want to win the lottery.

I want to be a soldier. And I don’t want to die.

I want to tell one of the teachers at my school not to be so miserable and cross all the time.

I want to go to Japan, Australia, New Zealand, America, the North Pole, the South Pole.

I want to be a whale, a bird and a cheetah.

I want to invent something that changes the world.

I want to be able to do magic.

I want to be the first man on Mars.

I would love to design buildings and houses.

I want to be respected.

I don’t want ever to be told, not to do what I love to do.

Wouldn’t it be amazing to fly!

Go as high as you can.

Maybe even go to a different dimension.

[Junior Drama: aged 8-13 years]

Tuesday 17 July 2012

granny big pants # 1



Scene 9: WAR

I curse who ever invented war!

Most of the time people don’t even know what they are fighting about.
It’s dreadfully horrid.
War makes me sad.
It is tricky: death, destruction and invasions.

W stands for ‘worried’.
A stands for ‘anxious’.
R stands for ‘revenge’.

War is pain, anger.
9 out of 10 people die in war.
I don’t get it.
No good ever comes of it.
Does it ever end?

Guns, fire, death, enemies, tanks, bombs, soldiers, granddad. 1st World War, 2nd World War, bullets, sadness, people, smoke, empty. Pointless, demolished land, Winston Churchill and Colonel Gaddafi. The Twin Towers, Afghanistan, Pakistan, military, shooting, the world.
Humans, nuclear bombs, fighting, hopeless, weapons. Killing, gas, army, friends, Hitler.

Why waste so many lives?
Just do it nicely and in a civilised way.
Everyone goes on about how civilised the human race is now.
I just can’t believe that someone can tell that much of a lie.
We won’t be civilised, until we can get by these huge worldwide
Arguments, in a civilised way.
Why can’t we just have a vote?
Or share and be fair?
Why don’t they just use their brain?

All the killings!
All the slaughter!

When I think about it at the beach
The sea seems filled with forgotten blood.
When I think about it in the woods
The victims lurk behind every tree.

Oh, deary me, war!

It is the time to make the ultimate sacrifice for peace and your country.
It’s expensive.
It crushes the human.
Your friends die before your eyes.
You shoot, drop bombs, spray harmful gases and kill.
If you win,
Other countries may fear you and you might get to own their land.
It’s full of conflict, aggression, blood and guts.

My Granddad was in World War II and was a tanker. The life span for them was six weeks but he lasted through the whole war. He even got kidnapped once.

You can’t always win a battle or a war.
They can last for years.

Battles on land.
Battles on sea.
The terrible war is horrid to me.

Yet there is victory.
And too much loss.
We win.
They lose.
And yet it always ends up in mud and moss.

Bombs, soldiers, armies, men
Death, tanks, death again.

War has evolved as technology has grown.
People don’t really pay attention to the fact that this world is not a
Peaceful place.

It’s every body’s worst nightmare.
What a stupid thing!
I mean: who would invent such a stupid thing?

Let’s hunt him down.

[Junior Drama: aged 8-13 years]

Monday 2 July 2012

om namaha shiva

















National Theatre: Lyttelton
THE LAST OF THE HAUSSMANS
by Stephen Beresford

Director: Howard Davies
Design: Vicki Mortimer
Lighting: Mark Henderson
Sound: Christopher Shutt
Photos: Catherine Ashmore

Scene 5: Judy

Take my advice, will you? Go away, my darlings. Go far away. And don't weigh yourself down with possessions - travel light. Eat off paper plates - I mean it. Go. Be free.

Sunday 1 July 2012

portrait



Self-portrait
JOHN-PAUL TIBBLES
Oil on canvas | 765 x 765 mm

Le (Salmacis Nun. 3)
Iván Franco Fraga
Oil on canvas | 800 x 1200 mm

Auntie
ALEAH CHAPIN
Oil on canvas | 1470 x 965 mm