At the end of May we completed our first tour. As is so often the way of these things, it was right in the middle of all the exciting action that we had the least time to write about it. So here's my rather belated tour blog. Suffice to say, we don't just like touring, we LOVE touring.
As the piece that we were touring was our site-specific performance of The Man with the Flower in his Mouth, I feel that we got a heightened tour experience. We not only had to recreate our show in 10 different locations, but we had to build new performance spaces in each one too.
Our 2010 production of The Man With the Flower in His Mouth (which is touring in May, watch this space for dates) started with 5, the recent production of Beckett's Krapp's Last Tape in Town really pushed the boat out and started with almost 20! And my current (non-Metta) show - Barrie Keeffe's Gotcha at Riverside Studios (for Jagged Fence) starts with at least 3.
Great as it is to see large scale epics, with giant sweeping sets and dozens of actors (Marianne Elliott's Women Beware Women at the National was a brilliant example of this type of theatre), there is something truly magical about an intimate theatre experience. We love theatre that is so close that you can see the dust and smell the sweat.
Last week I saw Saturn Returns at the Finborough. It had a great script and fantastic performances, but one of the things that lent it real power was the close proximity of the audience to the action. The story was a deeply personal one, showing the same man at three different stages in is life at three different crisis points with three different women. Much of the script was the personal reflections of the main character, much of the action was his memories.
Because it's winter, and grey and gloomy and miserable, we're cheering people up by giving away another set of tickets to our current show, The Man with the Flower in his Mouth.
Just tweet a picture of yourself with a flower in your mouth using hashtag #ManWithTheFlower by noon on Tuesday 30th November. Our 5 favourite pictures will be notified via Twitter by 4pm on the Tuesday and offered a ticket to any performance before the end of the run.
Anyone can take part - all you need is a picture of yourself with a flower of some sort. Real, wooden, paper, whatever and wherever you like!
“It’s an enthralling hour in New Cross” * * * * WhatsOnStage
“this delightful production is another reminder that this is a company to watch.” Spectator
“The setting is inspired, blending theatre with everyday life in a disconcerting mix” Londonist
Well, we always like high production values, but lets think a little about what that means. What we often mean is a slick and highly polished production - the sort of thing that looks expensive to achieve, the kind of professionalism you expect to see at the National or in the West End for example, but is that the only meaning?
I have to admit that I still sometimes get lost in the terminology here. We have site specific, site sympathetic and then site responsive. Since the vagaries of the term is not an original gripe, I'll brush over it and quickly define what I'm talking about. What Metta really like at the moment is theatre performed where it is set.
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