Festival Blogger review - Optimism

Image: Optimism. Photo: Jeff Busby

For a classic satire written almost three centuries ago, the themes of Candide still relate well to our times. Optimism by Malthouse Melbourne brings the story, with ever present topics of war, murder, rape and slave labour, to a modern audience with the additions of themes including global warming and swine flu.

I knew the play was to be an unusual take on Candide but I didn’t expect a group of airhostesses and apes dancing at a party, with one of the apes DJing, whilst holding giant inflatable balls and surrounded by bubbles and glitter. Despite these moments of bizarre frivolity, many serious themes were covered including the essential good and evil, with the theoretical question posed "when we send a boat off to Egypt, do we ask if the rats are comfortable?" It was all approached in a way that made you feel like you were in an insane dream, perhaps referring to the insanity of life itself.

One analogy that stuck in my mind is when Candide says he thinks his life is like god making a finger painting at some sort of "cosmic crèche". Starting off with the grass, adding some sky and then a sun, then adding war, some tulips, some blackbirds… changing his mind and trying to rub things out until the whole painting became a mass of brown which even "god’s own mother wouldn’t stick to her fridge"!

The lead role of Candide is played brilliantly by Australian comedian/actor Frank Woodley, who moves easily between cheerful optimism, disappointment at the fate his life dictates and even moments of improvised stand-up comedy with (at first reluctant) audience participation. The clown outfit of Candide seemed to represent his optimistic, naïve outlook on life.

The rest of the cast were superb, switching easily between characters including airhostesses, an ironic take on a whirling dervish, a singing monk, priests and slaves.

The set was fascinating, using simple glittered, plastic and white curtains to completely change the atmosphere of the set. Fans were used to simulate plane travel and wind, and a shiny steel box forming a plane cabin. Like a morbid waiting room, a digital display at the top of the set let you know where the characters were at all times, from Venice to Surinam, from 'In transit' to 'Half way between heaven and hell'.

The show concluded with Candide announcing it was time to look after the garden, as in Voltaire’s original conclusion (‘Tendre votre jardin’). The message rang loud and clear - while we should consider wider global issues, ultimately our power for change lies in our own backyard. In a literal response to Candide's statement however, buckets of dirt were then emptied onto the stage by each cast member, finished off with a healthy showering from Candide's watering can.

Reviewer: Sarah Jackson

Festival Blogger review - St Kilda: Island of the Birdmen

Image: St Kilda. Photo: Photo: Christian Mathieu

Last night I had the pleasure of watching the opening night of St Kilda. This was my first show of the Edinburgh International Festival and was a stimulating introduction into what promises to be a thought-provoking programme focused around the theme of the Enlightenment.

Highlights from the opera included the dramatic mix of vintage and modern film footage as well as the impressive acrobatics used to mirror the inhabitants scaling of the island’s sheer cliffs which rise taller than the Empire State Building. Perhaps the highlight was the effortless and lyrical singing of soprano Alyth McCormack playing the role of Catriona. The dissonant orchestration came crashing into McCormack’s floating melodies as the harsh realities of what everyday life meant on St Kilda became all the more apparent to the audience. Her style and voice were perfectly suited to the haunting Gaelic melodies of David Graham and Jean-Paul Dessy’s music, and rather than the liquid line of the music coming across as a wash of sound, she made sense of each line of the Gaelic. As well as Gaelic, the opera was performed in a mixture of French and English. The Gaelic I was expecting and helped to recreate the atmosphere of the island. However the use of French as well as English made the storyline difficult to follow at times.

St Kilda was truly a multi-media experience. The show opened with an eerie monologue by Alain Eloy playing the part of John. On top of this several layers of film, music and acrobatics were built up to create a very sensual impression of what life was like on the island for the audience. Just as the opera started with a lone voice, the production come to a close with the different layers gradually fading out, and the show ended beautifully dying away to nothing. The complex multi-media approach taken by director Thierry Poquet worked both in favour and against the production. Whilst there was always something to hold your attention, sometimes you weren’t sure where to look and the individual components despite themselves all being excellent, didn’t equal more than the sum of their parts.

St Kilda was not easy watching or listening but light entertainment was never the production’s aim. It was simultaneously provocative and heart-breaking and raises awareness of a spectacular world heritage site.

Reviewer: Fiona Stewart

Faith Healer video

Watch a short film of Faith Healer actor Kim Durham and Gate Theatre Director Michael Colgan chat about the production and the Gate | Friel series at Festival 09.

Interview with Frank Woodley from Optimism

Image: Frank Woodley. Photo: Jeff Busby

We caught up with Australian comedian and actor Frank Woodley recently and asked him a few questions about his lead role of Candide in Malthouse Melbourne's production of Optimism.

Growing up in Victoria, how did you enter the world of comedy and acting?
I'm not sure really. There were no performers in my family. The closest thing was the fact that in his youth, my dad had once been an audience participant at a comedy show. Because it was an event that dad remembered vividly, whenever I involve an audience participant I try to keep in mind that although it's just another show for me, for them it'll be something they remember forever. My earliest memory of making people laugh was when I was running the final leg of a relay in the grade two school sports. I realized I couldn't win and I thought "I can try as hard as I can, and still lose, or I could dance down the track playing the baton like a flute." I went the flute option, got a big laugh from the crowd and my fate was sealed. When I was about eighteen some friends and I started putting together routines and trying them out in comedy clubs and although we had some shockers we got enough laughs to confirm in me, this is what I love to do.

You were part of the successful comedy duo Lano and Woodley for many years. Was the move to becoming a solo performer a natural progression or did you find this difficult?
It has been strange. When we divorced we divided up all our material. Col got the set ups and I got all the punch lines. Unfortunately ... "So, I ate the bicycle, and rode the eggplant", doesn't really work without it's precursor. It took me quite a while to not feel very strange on stage without Col. One of the things I've had to learn is more discipline. Col and I evolved a technique where I could head off on flights of fancy, and if they worked great, but if they didn't work, they'd still have a pay off because Col would berate me and abuse me for wasting the audience's time. Now Col's not there as a safety net I have to be a bit more diligent so that any improvisations I undertake work in themselves.

Which part of your job do you find the most satisfying?
There's a few things I really cherish. I love that first time you present a new idea ... and it works. People laugh. Then I love the experience of refining that material. When I've performed a joke a few times, and I know it's a reliable big laugh, then I have this lovely experience of finding the most effortless way, to get that big laugh. Sometimes, if you put the right pieces together, you hardly have to do anything, and it gets an explosive response. A well timed eyebrow raise, or a twitch of a finger. I don't know if that suggests that I'm very lazy, but I get immense satisfaction from discovering that efficiency.

You performed at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2008 and are coming back to take part in the Edinburgh International Festival. What do you enjoy about Edinburgh during the Festival period?
I absolutely love Edinburgh. The amount of theatre and music during the festival is totally absurd. I think the thing I love is the incredible variety of stuff going on and the fact that if you get into it, at least once a day you'll see something totally unique that fills you with wonder. There are so many passionate artists in town. Every one of them feels so intensely about their work and is putting their heart and soul into it. Whether it's a youth theatregroup doing Sweeny Todd, or a cutting edge multi media company from Eastern Europe everybody wants to reach an audience and move them deeply. And the backdrop of such a beautiful city doesn't hurt. A little bit less drizzle maybe ... but hey, I've got an umbrella.

What drew you to the production Optimism?
I read the book Candide, written by Voltaire in 1759, which is what the play is based on, and found it totally fascinating. The questions which it explores are so fundamental. Considering life is undoubtedly going to be filled with all sorts of suffering, and we all grow old and die without ever knowing conclusively what it was all about, is optimism an intelligent perspective? And ... what is the alternative? The level of black humour is astounding and I was surprised to find that the edge that the material teeters on, in terms of being shocking or offensive is completely contemporary. This is a comedy that confronts murder, war, rape, disease, depression, disillusionment, old age, bestiality, slavery and just about every other taboo you can think of. I spoke to Michael Kantor the director and he was very enthusiastic about creating a show that would respect the spirit of Voltaire's novel but would also be original and exuberant contemporary theatre.

What do you find most interesting about the character you play in this production?
One of the reasons I was drawn to the play is when I read the book I could see that the comic persona that I have been playing and refining for the past twenty years fitted very neatly into the role of Candide. Candide is essentially a trusting innocent with a naturally optimistic point of view, who is also very sensitive about his own and other people's suffering. I knew that the play was going to be a stretch for me in terms of the dramatic requirements, but I was confident that the role suited my strengths as a performer.

Why do you think people should come and see Optimism at the Edinburgh International Festival?
Hopefully people go away from the show, feeling stimulated on many levels. There's lot of laughs (it's hard to feel pessimistic while your laughing), and some very beautiful theatrical images and music, as well as some deeply challenging and confronting questions being kicked around. It's definitely the kind of show that is brilliant fuel for conversation.

Festival Blogger review - Diaspora

The concept of Diaspora is one which is particularly poignant for the Celts. Ask the McTaggarts of Dunedin, the MacKenzies of Saskatchewan or the O’Reillys of Boston. The arrival of Ong Ken Sen’s piece at the Festival in the year of Homecoming Scotland is an opportunity for one of the world’s most widely scattered races to explore the experiences of other peoples who have left old homelands and settled in new.

Singapore, where TheatreWorks hail from, is a country founded, as Steve Cramer reminds us in his excellent programme notes, “…founded almost exclusively on the concept of diaspora…”. When Sir Stamford Raffles arrived there in 1819 he found an island populated by a few Malay families and some Chinese traders. The thriving, bustling, energetic country of 4 milllion which today is the busiest harbour in the world is populated almost exclusively by the descendents of immigrants. Ong spent three years researching this piece, visiting ten countries and interviewing legions of ordinary people, as well as collaborating with a range of artists from diasporic backgrounds. Their stories form the basis of this piece.

Ong has brought together the sort of cultural big-hitters we are used to expecting on the international festival circuit. The CVs in the programme reveal a creative team of immense experience around that circuit, and certainly the piece shows all the strengths of its international pedigree. I didn’t look at the programme until after the show, and actually commented to my wife that the closest thing I had seen to what we were watching was a piece by Chinese composer Tan Dun, Revolution, which I had seen at the Huddesfield Contemporary Music festival in the 90s. Lo and behold, there in the progamme I find that two of the music pieces had been composed by Tan Dun. The video work by Choi Ka Fai and others is some of the best I have seen, and the stories of a range of individuals, told by four actors, are riveting in their insights.

Having said all of that, and the piece was really good, and I am really glad I saw it, it was also frustrating. The very scale of the piece, which will undoubtedly make it extremely well received around the festival circuit, militated against a genuine engagement with the very personal stories. We see the actors, telling the stories, replicated on four huge screens at the back of the stage, in black and white, with headset microphones next to their faces. There are all sorts of practical reasons for this. The orchestra playing flat out for one, the sheer size of the Playhouse for another. At the same time we see the actors, lit, sideways on at the sides of the stage, speaking to an offstage camera. Why? We see the mediated images dominating everything, the real person remote from us. I should say, as well, that the whole stage is behind a gauze, on which projections are being screened. The real people are remote from us, just when we most want to engage with them as people. This is one of the perennial problems of multi-media work – how do you stop the mediated images swamping the live performers?

The music was ravishing. The orchestra, under Tsung Yeh, were marvellous. The video work was fantastic. A couple of sections particularly stood out for me. The first half ended with a funny, clever, delightful Bollywood music video by Navin Rawanchaikul, about his journey to India to seek for people with the same name as him. In the second half the section with Scottish artist Rabiya Choudhry was riveting. One of the reasons that it was so powerful, I have to say, is because she was sitting on the stage drawing on a screen as we listened to her voice. Watching a real person, NOT behind a gauze, was a welcome bonus. I, and several others, both those who accompanied me and other members of the audience I over heard at the end, found ourselves craning to see over her shoulder to the actual drawing, rather than looking at the huge projection of the drawing onto the front gauze.

There were memorable images throughout the piece. Simple, eloquent moments when an actor, seen in silhouette, would walk across the platform in front of the huge screens. The image of a group of people walking into the sea, to be eventually picked up by boats, an image which resonated powerfully with forgotten memories of the Vietnamese Boat People all those years ago. The music suffused with the kind of duende that Celtic music is filled with, that is also found in Flamenco, another diasporic tradition aching with a longing for home.

The piece is powerful, no doubt. It is filled with the authentic voices of the people who have migrated throughout the countries of South East Asia: Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, India, China, Malaysia, and Singapore more than anywhere else combines all of those traditions into a culture which values and respects those traditions. Those who read my blog during the Singapore Arts Festival will recall the court case where some religious fundamentalists were jailed for sending inflammatory religious tracts to people of other religions. The judge, in sentencing them, said that their actions struck at the very heart of Singaporean society, which is based on respect for diversity. Diaspora is not only about loss, it is also about opportunity, new beginnings, and the chance to turn away from the mistakes and hatreds of the past and make a fresh beginning. Ask our sheepstealing descendents who regularly thrash us in sporting events. Ask the people of the thriving country of Singapore.

Perhaps the most moving question of all that the piece poses is “where would you like your remains to be when you die?”. The ways that the people interviewed answered this are moving. It sent me, a Celt who lives in England, out into the night examining the depths of my own heart.

A fascinating piece. The sort of piece that only a Festival like Edinburgh can really bring to this country. I just wish we could have been closer to the people.

Reviewer: Ronan Paterson

Interview with Bernd Lepel from Admeto

Image: Admeto Photo: Theodoro da Silva

Admeto, re di Tessaglia re-imagines Handel’s operatic masterpiece in the world of the Japanese samurai. The production is both musically sublime and visually stunning. We talked to Bernd Lepel, the set and costume designer for Admeto, re di Tessaglia.

You began your career as a set designer in theatre but have also worked in cinema and television. What do you see as the main differences between these mediums and which do you most prefer to work in?
I would have given up one of these mediums if I wouldn’t feel the need of both for my work. Is opera stylisation? Is film realism? These are questions I have asked myself since the beginning of work in both fields. I will never find the answers, but I know for sure that the mutual influence is a great benefit for me.

You have worked in set design and production for over three decades. Can you describe the main changes in the field?
Significant on stage changes are ’cinematographic’ influences like projection or atmospheric lightning. In cinema, computer work has become very important over the years but one always is free to choose whether to use modern technics or not. You can still fascinate an audience with simple, hand-made stage design. People can also still be absolutely absorbed by CGI-free films.

You have collaborated with Doris Dörrie on several productions, what do you find most inspiring about working together?
Understanding each other is a rare gift, especially for artists with strong egos! When I met Doris for the first time we discovered our easy way of ’complicated artistic communication’. Coming from backgrounds of filmmaking, we both enjoy working for fleeting moments and lasting emotions on stage. Most inspiring is the process of forcing each other to to push further in our art.

What is special about this production of Admeto, re di Tessaglia?
I have always been fascinated by Samurai costumes, Kimonos and their history. It is intriuging that they are practical in a way, but completely unpractical on the other hand. The dressing ceremonies, with all those amazing binding technics together with some agonizing ways of wearing shoes, create a unique and special type of behaviour and attitude.

Where did you take your inspiration from for the amazing costumes you have created for Admeto, re di Tessaglia?
It isn’t the look of costumes so much as trying to find an unique costume profile for each character. Alceste and Admeto for example are almost wrapped in an enormous amount of fabric to give them a strong static appearance.

Have you been to the Edinburgh International Festival before?
I´ve never been to the Edinburgh International Festival before, but years ago when I was working on a movie production in Glasgow I made a trip to Edinburgh. I had deep impressions by this city which was almost like a surreal microcosm for me. This amazing northern light seemed to had found its ideal architecture and city topography to create a magic theatrical scenery which one will find nowhere else then here. I’m excited to come back.

Admeto, re di Tessaglia will be performed on 28, 29 and 31 August at the Edinburgh Festival Theatre. Tickets are available from eif.co.uk/admeto.

Festival 09 iCalendar

Our programme of events for this year's Festival is now available as an iCalendar download. This enables you to view all our events in your desktop calendar application, and find out dates, times and details quickly. It makes it easy to check your personal appointments against our Festival schedule and copy events you're attending into your own calendar. It's compatible with Outlook, Apple iCal and Google Calendar, and will even sync with your iPhone.

- To view the Festival 09 Google Calendar click here.
- To add the Festival 09 events to your own calendar, download the iCalendar file here.
- For more info and instructions on the Festival 09 iCalendar click here.

If you have any feedback or questions on our new Festival 09 iCalendar email digital.marketing@eif.co.uk with the subject "iCalendar".

Dialogos CD pack competition

Image: Tondal's Vision, Diagolos. Photo: Corinne Silva.

Dialogos is a vocal ensemble specialising in medieval music which has been described as "passionate and divinely beautiful from beginning to end" (Cresendo).
For Festival 09 Tondal's Vision will be performed in Church Slavonic and Latin with English supertitles, telling one of the most popular stories of the 12th century. In this version Dialogos presents the vision in a new context with medieval polyphony producing a pure and expressive rendition of an ancient tale.
We are giving away a special Dialogos prize pack containing the CDs Tondal's Vision, Lombards et Barbares, Chant Wars and Abbo Abbas. Further details of the CDs can be found on the Dialogos website. To enter the draw email marketing@eif.co.uk with your name, address and the subject heading "Dialogos", plus answer the questions "When was the Dialogos ensemble formed?"
Dialogos performs Tondal's Vision at Canongate Kirk on 24 and 25 August. For more info and to book tickets click here.

The Scottish Diaspora

Ong Keng Sen is the director of TheatreWorks (Singapore). Keng Sen and a group of video artists have searched for real-life stories of diaspora and displacement, creating a visionary production, layering music, video and live story-telling. Here, Ong Keng Sen talks about how he came to collaborate with Rabiya Choudhry, one of the video artists involved in Diaspora.

"I asked Rabiya Choudhry to join us onstage with Diaspora. I am particularly interested in her work as an expression of a new generation of Scots. She oozes confidence about who she is and yet, has a coexisting vulnerability. What is evident in her paintings/drawings is their connectedness with her personal choices. There seems to be a direct conduit between her dreams, her fears, her insecurities, her strengths and what she draws. The paintings are not forced nor artificial but instead are sharings of inner conversations. In her work, there is a blurring of private and public space, as obsessions tumble into the open and are embraced by her public.

I was first introduced to her work by The Skinny, an arts/entertainment newspaper in Edinburgh. The expressionism, the abstraction is compelling and yet it seems of the here and now, of clubs, of fashion, of the urban. I can imagine her drawings on the street as graffiti, as street art. In fact I have seen them or I imagine I have, so potent and iconic is the expression. Yet it has a direct line to Picasso, Gauguin. It is the narrative of a generation of disenfranchised inner-city street kids speaking to the power centre of our times. However, when you meet Rabiya, you realize that she is balanced, well adjusted to her mixed or double heritage, very comfortable with who she is in Scottish society. Of course, there are anxieties but it is clear that these anxieties are channeled into art. The now- generations of Scots embrace these anxieties in Rabiya’s work as a reflection of their own anxieties. This hints at the times, everyone has begun to feel the alienation of being the outsider. The alien-nation is truly well and alive as otherness is negotiated through art.

On 26 March – 1 Apr 2009, we filmed Rabiya and her family. The above questions were not answered initially but we decided to proceed and discover. On 26 Mar, we filmed Rabiya talking in depth about her work, her impulses, her themes, her worldview. On 27 Mar, we visited her parents. Her mother Moona had converted to Islam when she was a teenager even before meeting her future husband. As a young girl, Moona took on this Islamic name and was convinced that she preferred Islamic faith to her white family’s Christian faith. At that time, she fostered herself to a Muslim family. She remembers being chased down the street by Scottish children who called her a paki-lover. As she reached her late teens, her foster family felt that it was becoming difficult for Moona to continue staying there unless she was betrothed. This was how Moona met Rabiya’s father, Mazar. Mazar had come from Pakistan in search of a tertiary education but had stayed on after. He did not complete his studies and instead set up his own businesses which failed one after the other. Today, he works at a call centre while Moona is a housekeeper at a home for the elderly. He is a devout Muslim. Rabiya is the only daughter and she lives as an artist in Edinburgh. When she visits Moona and Mazar in Baillieston, Glasgow, she becomes their daughter.

We drive out to Girvan after picking her parents up from Baillieston. This is the second time I was meeting her parents. We had broken the ice a couple of days earlier, meeting for dinner in Glasgow. As I had an agenda of filming them, I wanted to seek their approval. It was a dinner with bated breath. Thanks to reality TV, Mazar was not disapproving and actually looked forward to his 5 minutes of fame under the camera spotlight!!!

In Girvan, the three of them was a gripping sight. Moona, a ginger-blonde woman in her Pakistani national dress or shalwar qameez; Mazar a respectable, solemn, elder from the south Asian community, physically still strong; Rabiya, their child who has grown into a young woman, an ‘emerging artist’. We followed them down the streets of Girvan where they had lived for a couple of years. Mazar had a sundries shop surviving through the patronage of the holiday beach crowd. He also worked in a restaurant. Moona looked after their three young kids. As they walked down memory lane, we filmed them from behind, referencing the camera which followed Vito Acconci as he trailed strangers in the streets of Manhattan in the 60s. It was an interesting memory walk which transformed Rabiya into a child again, unconsciously, as she relived the town. Girvan is now a deserted beach town. Today, most Scottish travel abroad for their holidays, rather than going to another local town. Girvan was almost a film set, it was our film set for that day anyhow.

On 29 Mar, we all met in Edinburgh in Rabiya’s apartment and filmed her work again. One of her best-known paintings is Moona Mother, Paki Lover and the Coffee Coloured Children (2004). Her father appears (owl-like) in one of her self-portraits, The Art Show (2004), on her shoulder for it is the Islamic belief that there are angels on one’s shoulders recording one’s good and bad deeds.

Rabiya professes her fascination with Hindu cosmology and visual imagery where the woman’s body is not shameful but indeed can be powerful like the Hindu goddess Kali. We joke that she is a leftover from before the Partition. We finally move onto Calton Hill where Rabiya talks about her love for Edinburgh, her journey between self/artist/lover in Edinburgh and Mazar’s daughter in Baillieston, Glasgow.

On 30 Mar, we return to Moona and Mazar. We visit Govanhill, their first home together in Glasgow. They had first lived here separately. It was also here that they met for the first time after Moona had chosen Mazar’s photo as a potential suitor. Govanhill is still the South Asian enclave of Glasgow, of Scotland. We returned to the family house in Baillieston where we filmed the old albums and learnt more about Mazar’s family in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. Moona had visited, staying for one year. She learnt from her mother-in-law how to keep a Pakistani household, especially how to cook curries for Mazar. Mazar visited but shortly, he was keeping a business in Glasgow. Moona became pregnant and continued to live alone in a strange country, a foreign culture. It was only when she became ill that she was sent back to Glasgow. Both Moona and Mazar were worried that she would have a premature birth in Pakistan where there were few good medical facilities."

Remember, Remember 6 September

Image: Bank of Scotland Fireworks Concert. Photo: Peter Sandground.

If you're looking for tickets for the Ross Theatre for this year's Bank of Scotland Fireworks Concert then it's not too late. Bank of Scotland has donated 600 tickets for the Bank of Scotland Fireworks Concert to the British Heart Foundation (BHF). The proceeds from the sale of these much sought after Ross Theatre tickets will help fund specialist BHF Heart Nurses in communities across the UK.

Ddemand for tickets for the fireworks display and concert is always high so get in quick! Tickets for the Ross Theatre cost £25 and can be purchased through the BHF website at bhf.org.uk/tickets

Puppets at Festival 09 & ticket competition

Image: Peter and Wendy. Photo: Scott Suchman.

Puppets play a starring role in two shows at Festival 09 - the theatre production Peter and Wendy and the staged opera Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria.

New York company Mabou Mines reimagines the story of Peter Pan in Peter and Wendy at the Royal Lyceum Theatre. The company is renowned for producing multi-disciplinary creations integrating the work of visual artists, puppeteers and musicians. Peter and Wendy is an exuberant and haunting adaptation, with seven skilled puppeteers bringing J. M. Barrie's classic tale to life.

Handspring Puppet Company from South Africa presents Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria at the King's Theatre. For this innovative production the company has joined forces with Philippe Pierlot, his Belgium based ensemble the Ricercar Consort and visual artist and director William Kentridge. Opera singers, musicians, half life-sized puppets and animated film come together to retell the Greek myth of Ulysses.

We are giving away two tickets to see Peter and Wendy on Wednesday 2 September at the Royal Lyceum Theatre. To go in the draw please email marketing@eif.co.uk with your name, address, the subject heading 'Mabou Mines' and tell us the name of the director of Peter and Wendy. Entries close 5.30pm, 31 July 2009.

Interview with Ong Keng Sen

Director Ong Keng Sen talks to us about his production, Diaspora, one of the highlights of Festival 09.

Tell us a little about your life and your career?
I studied law at the University of Singapore. After graduating, completing my pupillage and 10 days as a professional lawyer, I decided to become a theatre director instead. I have made a career in theatre, beginning first with new plays, on site-specific issues, creating the foundations of an independent Singapore theatre.

When I was about to turn 30, I left to pursue post-graduate studies in performance at New York University. This changed my life forever. My work in the theatre began to focus on dialogue between cultures, producing many works which have been described as 'intercultural' journeys.

How do you feel about having your work performed at the Edinburgh International Festival?
As a post-colony Singaporean artist, the Edinburgh International Festival is a major landmark of theatre in the world. I began to study theatre first through Shakespeare and later the Royal Court, the Traverse: these were all important landmarks for a young Singaporean theatre director. However through the decades, I have moved very far from British theatre.

From another angle, though, it means a lot to come here to finally perform this work as I have spent the last two years negotiating the Scottish terrain. It’s a little bit like a home to me, so you could say that it is my homecoming to the city as an artist with a work onstage.

What is ‘Diaspora’ about?
"Diaspora" is storytelling within a global panorama. The stories are narratives of migration reinterpreted by the distance of media. In a sense, this is how the average person perceives migration today, either they are inside the total experience of migration or they are watching it on TV.

I have chosen an approach which is more stream of consciousness rather than diving into a single story. In the ocean of migration, sometimes we encounter a personal moment, a fragile meeting, often we are taken along with the tide.

What inspired you to create it?
As a child of diaspora (my parents came to Singapore from China), I found it an inevitable narrative. I must say, however, that I never started to create such a work. In fact, it was only when I started working on it, that I saw myself in the mirror.

I had researched Asian performances and cultures for a decade. Initially I started with 'the classical traditions', even though I was always questioning the notion of authenticity. In the end, I started to become interested in my translators who were often young people who were outside of the 'pure' traditions. They were individuals like me, educated abroad, returning home, making sense of their traditions.

I became interested in the hybrid, the 'bastard' of many influences. The 'impure' began to fascinate me and this can be said to be the beginning of diaspora. I mean who is the authentic Chinese? The China Chinese, the Singaporean Chinese, the Taiwanese Chinese, the British Chinese? Of course, they are authentic, all different from one another.

The stories of diaspora made me reflect on my own, my parents' destinies to be in the South Seas (Nanyang or Singapore). It came to pass that I became a translator myself (for the theatre audiences) as I was so absorbed by my own translators, often fixated by their stories 'in between' as we travelled from traditional performance to a master artist's gallery. Along the way, I also grew into a cultural nomad in a floating world.

Regardless of nationality and background, what traits do you think migrants share?
They tend to be hungry for change, willing to take huge risks and often are also extremely conservative. What perspectives do you think migrants share on ‘home’ and ‘belonging’? I think this is very personal and I wouldn’t like to begin to generalise (although I have already done so above!) Perhaps I can only say that every migrant wants to be seen in his or her own special context and not to be lumped into a migrant group or simply perceived as a generic 'culturally diverse problem'.

How has Scotland had an impact on your work?
I spent a couple of months here reflecting on a new version of "Diaspora" for the Edinburgh International Festival. I began with the Institute of Advanced Studies in Humanities in the University of Edinburgh, meeting many professors in the different cultural studies department.

I began looking at the waves of migrations into Scotland as well as the parallel discourse of the Scots who left. I felt both overwhelmed and underwhelmed by the potential navel gazing that I could end up with.

After an interview with a Polish researcher who is studying Polish integration into Scotland, I began to feel that I had to narrow the field. I was at risk of sounding too academic and too removed from the material.

I decided to return to the basis of the original production of "Diaspora" which is the panoramic story of migration by Asians within and without of Asia. Why shouldn’t I just focus on migration by Asians into Scotland. It was fun to astound people by asking them for the Asian Scot!Fortunately it did not turn into an archaeological expedition. The Asian Scot is truly well and alive!

Diaspora plays at the Edinburgh Playhouse on the 15 & 16 August. For more info and to book tickets click here.

Actus tragicus competition

Image: Actus Tragicus. Photo: Thilo Nass.

Staatsoper Stuttgart (Stuttgart State Opera) presents the staged opera Actus tragicus at Festival 09. Set to the music of Bach, with its eloquence and connection to the human spirit, the minutiae and repetition of human behaviour is brought to life within the cross-section of a four-storey building set. The chorus is amongst the most successful in Europe and has won the title of 'Opernwelt's Opera Choir of the Year' seven times. We are giving away four Actus tragicus prize packs, each consisting of:

• A Staatsoper Stuttgart branded umbrella


• A Staatsoper Stuttgart magnetic bookmark


• A copy of the CD Great Opera Choirs featuring works by Wagner, Mozart, Verdi, Monteverdi, Borodin and Schönberg, performed by Staatsopernchor Stuttgart and Staatsorchester Stuttgart


• A limited edition Actus tragicus postcard

To enter, email marketing@eif.co.uk with your name, address and the subject heading 'Actus tragicus' and tell us the name of the production's conductor. Entries close on Friday 17 July and winners will be notified the following week.

Singapore Arts Festival Blog #8 - "It's a Wrap"

Well, still alive. Back again, after the most wonderful time in Singapore, the most horrendous travelling both to and from, and I can tell you that one of the first things I did when I got back was to find some gum and chew the living daylights out of it. Pause to picture, if you will, hordes of tourists returning from Singapore, and suddenly freed from restrictions going wild, chewing gum, dropping litter, hochling in public and not flushing public lavvies, (all things you can be fined for over there). You can also, remember , be fined for carrying a durian fruit in the pannier of your bicycle, but I think even the most hardened criminal in this country would baulk at the thought of that one. Carry one of those anywhere and become an instant pariah. Pigs would move pointedly to the far side of the sty as you passed.

Singapore is a fantastic place, and the Festival is really great. It makes a strong case to be right up there with the best festivals in the world. The support from the government is terrific, the people enthusiastic, the setting wonderful, and I am blessed to have been given the opportunity to visit both the Festival and the country. Son & Heir loved it too. He no longer appears to despise me quite as much as he did before we went away together, so I have Singapore to thank for that as well.

I had the best time imaginable, but there is one ache inside me despite everything – Beloved Spouse wasn’t able to go after that ….woman at the airport refused to allow me onto the plane with my damaged passport. I call to mind the guy in the passport office saying to the person in front of me “Your passport scans perfectly well. What’s the problem?”. Make no mistake, refusing to take my passport was the personal decision of that woman, and because of that my wife lost her opportunity to share with me the best fortune I have ever had in my life. Yes, there is an ache. She should have been there. There is another pity – that increased age and increased girth prevented me from making that death-defying dive over the counter to wreak the havoc which has enlivened my fantasies ever since.

I hope that some of you will have the opportunity to go to Singapore and enjoy the Arts Festival. It really is worth it. I hope if you do go you have better luck travelling than I did.

Edinburgh is still the best festival in the world, but then it’s the Daddy of them all. The Festival…that’s all you need to say, and people know what you mean. Edinburgh invented the definition of what a modern arts festival is. I’ve been going to the Edinburgh International Festival for forty three years, and some of the very best things I have ever seen have been there. I think of one of Ravi Shankar’s first concerts in Europe, when I was sixteen and travelled from St Andrews on my own to see him. I think of the old Prospect Theatre Company doing King Lear in the Church of Scotland’s Assembly Hall on the Mound, when Timothy West was only twenty seven or something, with Michael Jayston as Edmund and Timothy Dalton as Edgar, and a phenomenal cast of other actors. (I’m trying to remember. Eileen Atkins, I think…oh, it was nearly forty years ago. Hey, I’m doing well to remember that many of them) Funny to think of Timothy Dalton as Edgar. In his subsequent Bond days we’d have expected him to pull a detonator out of his loincloth and blow Edmund to kingdom come. Nowadays he could probably do it after a good Vindaloo.

The artists I saw in Singapore were all terrific. Singapore's position at the crossroads of Asia makes it the ideal place, not just geographically but spiritually too, to really explore the ways in which cultures react to and inform each other. I WISH I had seen Tadeshi Suzuki. He’s really hard to get, and so seldom seen. Even without him, it was a once in a lifetime chance to get to go to the Singapore Arts Festival, and a prize beyond my wildest dreams. Thank you, Edinburgh International Festival. Thank you to everyone who made it happen. Thank you to all the delightful people who hosted us so well in Singapore, particularly to Fan Wong, who got us to eat things we would never have dreamt of. Thank you to those of you who have persisted in following our story over the last couple of weeks.

I was trying to think how to sign off from this blog. Not to look back, but instead to look forward to the events coming up this year at the Edinburgh International Festival. That Romanian Faust looks incredible, I have to say, as does the piece about St Kilda, and I am really interested in Jimmy Yuill’s take on Robert Henryson’s Testament of Cresseid. I’ll absolutely have to go and see a couple of former colleagues from Ireland in the Brian Friel trilogy, and Mabou Mines are something to look forward to. OK, it’s nearly all Theatre, but I never pretended to be objective. If I go to see the Henryson I’ll make Wullie Doanuldsen jealous, our bard from the banks of the Scunnerburn, somewhere between Lochgelly and Cowdenbeath. I ran into him again on the way back. He is in the midst, no doubt, of composing some great work, but in the meantime he offered me this. I’ll leave him the last word:

Ah’ve shairly had a bonnie week oot in Singapore,
An’ seen some things ah’d nivver see at hame in Scunnerlaw
If ye care for pianney wurks, be chooser or be beggar,
Ye’ll nivver hear them better pliyed than by Joanna MacGregor
The next nicht ah wis sae jet-lagged ah thocht that ah micht faint
Insteed ah saw a Latvian play, t’wis jist like dryin’ paint.
“The Cherry Orchard” nixt ah seen, an’ it wis awfy braw,
It had been directit by famous Lin Zhaohua
The final sicht that thrilled ma een wis Warld Famous’s “Crackers”,
But then ah hud tae go an kip, fir by then ah wis knackered
The venues fer the festival, doon by the waterfront
Ah’d huv tae say, wi’ haun on hairt, that they were brillyunt.
Sae noo ah’m hame, wi’ sichts and sounds amangst the best seen yet
An’ a’ ma freens can say tae me is “Wha’s a jammy get?”
Ah dinnae care, it’s been a time ah’ll mind fer evermore,
Ah’ll ayewis treasure memories o’ bonnie Singapore

Singapore Arts Festival Blog #7 - "Durian and the Flying Cattle Truck"

The last day. We decided to really be adventurous, and set off on the local bus to visit Malaysia. This is on one level very simple, on another very complicated. In the EU we are used to light touch border controls, if any at all. In Singapore the border crossing to the nearest part of Malaysia, Johor Baru, looks like Gormenghast. The bus is full of ordinary people going to shop, Malaysia being cheaper than Singapore, and the exchange rate being favourable. I commented before on the friendliness of the immigration people at Changi Airport, and indeed friendly they were, but they obviously save the rotweillers for the crossing at Woodlands. You have to fill out an exit card, fill in an entry card, sign customs declarations, and then get a new entry visa on the way back from the shops a few hours later. If you drive, you have to fill your car up before leaving Singapore, Malaysia having cheaper petrol. If you don’t have a full tank leaving Singapore you can be fined $500.

We cross a crowded causeway, and enter a city in another country. The Malaysians have built an impressive shopping complex, and this is still Asia with air-con and escalators, but it does actually palpably feel different. Son & Heir and I wander off to try to find something a little more…well, Asian I suppose. We wander down some back streets and see places that are more like they are on the telly, but the heat is oppressive, and the smell of Durian powerful.

I haven’t talked about Durian, but you may already know about them. These are a fruit that smell absolutely hellish. The stink would drop a dragon at a hundred paces, and yet people here absolutely love them. They do in Singapore as well, but there you can…guess what? …yes, be fined for carrying them on the Metro or, I am told, even in a pannier on your bicycle. There are two ways of looking at this. One is to say “How oppressive”, but if you’ve ever been down-wind of one you may well incline to the other party. The smell actually makes me heave.

We stock up on presents to take home, and then have a right faff getting back into Singapore. That would have looked rather stupid, missing the plane because we got stuck in Malaysia. We eventually get back in. Just as well because we have one more thing we want to do before leaving the country. We go on the Singapore flyer. This is a bigger wheel than the London Eye, and the views are fabulous. It really shows the scale of Singapore’s achievements in just 44 years. It’s an astonishing sight, looking out over a staggering number of ships in the harbour, an unbelievable skyline, and the signs of new building everywhere. This is a country, and a city, with incredible energy. S&H compares the Singapore skyline to London. Well, in fact there is no comparison. Canary Wharf? The Gherkin? They’d be lost here. This place is buzzing in a way that few places in Europe do, or indeed ever have done.

The trip home is initially hellish. Changi airport is bewailing the fact that it has slipped to 3rd in the world’s rankings. All I can say is, the others must be horrendous. Certainly check in is very slick, but then we sit at the gate for ages, there is no information, security staff turn up then go away again, the screening is slow, they only have one scanner working, you can’t take water through the checks, but then there’s nowhere to get a drink on the other side, (or indeed anything else), the whole thing is rather poor. The flight then from Singapore to Dubai is awful. One of the most unpleasant I have ever had. We are in a Boeing 777, known to some as the Flying Cattle Truck. Well, no, only known to me really, but it SHOULD be called that . We’re shoehorned into the plane, worse than Ryanair, and it’ s a seven hour flight. Some people have been on since Australia. The plane sits ten across, and there’s no room. Fortunately I am sitting next to a very nice woman, and the two of us are quite tolerant, but S&H is not so lucky, and he has a hell of a time. There is nowhere to put your legs, or to stretch them. The seating arrangements on the plane are an invitation to Deep Vein Thrombosis. The flight from Dubai to Newcastle is fine. We’re on an Airbus. It seats eight across. There’s room for everyone.

The same airline runs the awful flight from Singapore to Dubai and the good one from Dubai home. What’s the difference? The plane I suppose. I should also say that the food is chronic and the coffee undrinkable even in emergency, but this airline is by no means unique in that respect.Having flown out over Iraq we flew back over Iran. All in all we flew over fourteen countries going to and from.

Arrived back safely in Britain, but…minus my luggage. His trip has been DOOMED. Having said that, it’s also been bloody marvellous. Britain greets us in its inimitable way. Beloved Spouse is not able to meet us at the Airport, and has been unsuccessful in finding a substitute, so S&H and I trudge to the Metro, to find 1) the ticket machine only takes coins 2) the change machine is broken 3) there is no other way of buying a ticket 4) none of this information is available before you walk all the way to the Metro station 5) there is nothing for it but to walk all the way back to the Airport to get change. Imagine a foreign visitor arriving into Newcastle International and trying to find a simple Metro ride into town. Contrast that with Singapore, where everything works. It’s actually disgraceful.

Anyway, back in the bosom of the family, except that their presents are in my missing suitcase, which perhaps mitigates the welcome slightly. Tomorrow I’ll try to come to some sorts of conclusions, but let me just say, it’s the best thing that’s happened to me in years.

Ronan Paterson, the e-bulletin subscriber who won our Singapore Arts Festival competition, is currently sending through regular updates from Singapore on his Festival adventures.