A different kind of theatre

People queued up for hours to get tickets to see Derek Jacobi do Lear - the production's sold out - I join the frenzy, but ended up disappointed ... I could justify it, but this is not the place for a review. I just guess I've outgrown traditional theatre. There were valuable things I picked up, though, which will feed through to shadow theatre. The theatrical landscape design which sought to integrate stage with theatre auditorium was based on wooden panels painted white and distressed with gaps between them which lined the floor, the back wall and the outside of the boxes. Through the gaps, light shone at particularly dramatic points in the plot. Shadows were cast accidentally and more powerfully than anything else which was going on on stage to my mind through side lighting along the back wall. The most striking effect was of lights being used to illuminate the space underneath the stage which shone through the gaps in the planks on the floor. A world of opportunity revealed itself ... to have a semi-transparent floor that acted as a screen ... now that I find interesting. Instead of doing what Fuerza Bruta did and alter the visual perspective of an audience located at ground level by suspending a swimming pool with a clear bottom above their heads, creating the effect of the audience being spatially subservient to the action, this approach would, in effect, elevate the audience and change their perspective relative to the action, elevating them to an Olympian perspective ... in my view, a far more interesting relationship ...

Shadow Theatre at the Edinburgh Fringe

There were two trends this year at the Fringe which I noted - one was being picked up by the media. That was the trend towards storytelling. It was a trend that was actively espoused by some, and actively shunned by others. I can't tell you how many acrobatic gymnastic shows I had to review there were without any sense of plot or narrative.

But the other, more interesting trend, that wasn't picked up by the media was the use of shadow theatre. In "Sweeney Todd: His Life, Death and Execution", there was a professional use of shadow theatre which was some of the best I saw on the Fringe. It stood out both by the irregular shape of the screen (like a sail), the unusual lighting (a rotating fan in front of a stage light to emulate fire light) and the quality of the performance in general. As with all the shows I saw, shadow theatre appeared as an aside within a conventional theatre performance, and shadow puppetry techniques were also used.

The Gannet, a low-budget show which explored a modern interpretation of the fairy tale of Hansel and Gretel employed shadow theatre to advance action and set scene. Again, combined with shadow puppetry and conventional theatre. It was the least successful. The lighting wasn't supportive of the shadow, and the screen was too transparent. Actors could be seen warming up behind the screen, destroying the magical atmosphere; a bird formed partly out of cut-out paper and a human hand for the beak looked as if it was made of two different materials rather than both being absorbed into one material - shadow. Interesting use was made of strips of cloth, attached to the top of the frame with velcro and moved about to create different scenes, but the changes were executed in full light and thus again, lost the magic.

An interesting take on the shadow theatre screen idea being transformed was in The Puppet-Man Show, where a shadow theatre emerged out of a glove puppet theatre. The screen was made of lining paper strips glued together horizontally at the edges. The shadow theatre was used effectively to help tell the Andersen story of The Shadow. It's really hard to get movements to coordinate between actors facing forward and shadow theatre performers who can't see what's happening. They almost managed it - but not quite. Better not to attempt it than to produce a half-baked effect was the lesson I learned. Then the screen was painted on, transforming into the background for the next story, which was cut into to form an opening for the following story, and broken through at the end. It would have been perfect had the horizontal strips not destroyed the seamlessness of the shadows, jarring the images, and highlighting the fact that this was a theatrical illusion, making it appear contrived.

More often than not, shadow effects were used (at worst in my favourite show of the season - Circa) and not enough thought given to how they would appear on stage. Rarely, they created a fantastic dramatic effect, as in a couple of the last shows I saw - Trapped, a dance show which had a final scene created with moving mechanical toys marching across an OHP screen. During the show, the performers' shadows and the shadows cast by the set - two huge cages which the performers used to dance within, around, and climb all over were fantastic. It takes more space to fill with shadow than it does with a person and this company really used shadow to fill that space. The final show I saw was on the main Festival - Il Ritorno di Ulisse in Patria, which combined life size puppetry with live opera and digital animation and ultrasound imagery to create a rich story of an individual's battle against fate and destiny. Shadow puppetry was used sparsely to great effect.

There's definitely something in the air - and where my own thoughts are heading is different to all the above - and that is to create pure shadow theatre - one screen, on which a story is played out by the shadows of live actors. No more, no less. How to create and sustain pure magic without being monotonous ... well, that's what I hope to work out over the next few months.

The shadow leads when the sun is behind

The shadow goes first when the sun lights up the path. It explores, with first experience, the newness. That which light made visible, it covers. And when the sun shines into my eyes, my shadow extends back over the path I've travelled, relishing my steps.

The first draft of "Under The Arabian Moon" has ended, I am without shadow - temporarily. For the light shines from two directions - the light of experience, illuminating the past, and the light of hopes and dreams illuminating the path ahead, obscured by my shadow, but also delineated by it.

Is it being pushed forward by the sun, or pulling itself away?

To look backwards - much was achieved. More than I had imagined possible - effects of multicoloured shadows, projection using OHP, but the most telling, moving images were the simplest - shadow theatre. That is where my first love lies, and where my direction of travel and development is likely to be headed.

To look forwards - I hope to achieve much more. In October, I go off to Schwabisch Gemeund, a small town in Germany to attend a workshop and performances at the Triennial International Shadow Theatre Festival. Technical knowledge is a must, and hopefully networking and discussion will lead to opportunities to share knowledge, develop work.

The Shadow of a Shadow

What is it about shadows that make them so fascinating? I've always been attracted by tonal contrasts, and the merging of opposites in a unity which transcends duality. Not surprising for a dyspraxic, I'm told. And here I am preparing a performance which combines storytelling, spoken word, performance poetry, live music and ... shadow theatre, based on The Arabian Nights. It draws together threads of East and West, of male and female gender games, darkness and light.
We started out with the idea of puppetry - of a (female) puppetteer (Scheherezade) pulling strings of power which animate the male characters, but then it developed further, as a result of a rehearsal in which a serendipitous ray of sunlight lit up Sam's Daaf (see pic) and begged to have us use it as a shadow puppet screen, so we started exploring first shadow puppetry and then that gradually evolved into shadow theatre. The most telling difference between shadow theatre and shadow puppetry is that shadow theatre uses live performers. The visual impact is far more powerful - riding that edge of metaphysical contour between darkness and light, between fantasy and reality, specific and general. It's a powerful theatrical medium, with exciting possibilities, and it was only today that I realised I'd touched on the shadow of that power a year ago (in 2008) when I did a photo shoot for Aesop The Storyteller, a show I wrote about Aesop's life. In the pic, I used the metaphor of a hand shadow - a bird formed by two linked hands, stretched out in opposition, shackled at the wrists - a visual expression of a wish to be free. In the context of the story, in which Aesop started out as a slave, and became one of the best-loved free-thinking storytellers of all time, it worked.
Was this shadow really a spark of light which was to show me the way forward?