Imploding Fictions' Blog » Laurence Short

Here Be Monsters

Øystein — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 21:42:39 +0000

For sailors, adventurers and those fools who loved to face their fears, cartographers would write on maps of unknown regions the legend ‘Here Be Monsters’.

Helpful information? Or did they just worship the mysterious, the unknown and the notorious?

I hadn’t worked in the theatre for a long time, when two years ago I decided enough was enough and took off towards my own unknown. I quit my office job, packed a change of clothes into a rucksack, left my phone and I-pod on the kitchen table and got on a plane leaving England for France.

From France I walked all the way across Spain, to finish on the west coast where the land meets the sea. It took me forty days and forty nights (and if that isn’t true, it should be.)

At the sea I had a choice – to return to my office job, spend all my time there each day, buy a sandwich at lunch, be allowed one tea break in the morning, one in the afternoon.

Or I could choose to spend as much time as possible doing what I love – writing plays. I hadn’t been involved in making theatre for three years. I looked at the map. ‘Here be monsters’ it said.

Scary as it was, I made the choice to return to a career writing plays. I stepped into unknown territory seeking liberation, with a smile on my face and an optimism bordering on insanity. Let there be monsters I thought. Let there be fear.

At the Drachengasse Theatre in Vienna, starting on May 3^rd, will be the play I wrote for the directors of Imploding Fictions. It is called ‘Flap and Fear’.

It involves Lilly and Jesse, two pigeons who go on holiday to Vienna.

You know the way pigeons gather in the park? Then if you move close to them, they flap their wings in fright and fly away? What happens next?

They always come back.

Pigeons returning to the crust of bread in the park and me returning to pursue a career in playwrighting are the same thing. They are stories about the addiction we have to our fears. The compulsion, the obsession to test, sample, discover how close we can get to the fire before we burn our hand.

‘Here Be Monsters’ the map says.

Curious, we keep going to have a look.

- Darren Lerigo, april 2010

***

Guest-blogger Darren Lerigo is a Madrid-based playwright and theatremaker. He has written Imploding Fictions’ latest play “Flap and fear” which will be performed as part of the Newcomer-scheme at Theater Drachengasse in Vienna 3rd – 22nd May 2010.

Twittering Pigeons

Øystein — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 07:51:24 +0000

Under the heading PigeonPost our two pigeons Lilly and Jesse from our new show Flap and fear will be tweeting about their life, fear and flapping throughout the project, both during our rehearsal time in London and our run at Theater Drachengasse in Austria. For tweets from the life of two London pigeons going on a city break to Vienna, and for updates about our theatrical endeavours during this project, follow TheImploders on Twitter:

http://twitter.com/TheImploders

We will also be using this account to tweet about Imploding Fictions in the future, so sign up now and follow our implosive affairs!

- Øystein

Flap and fear in Vienna

Øystein — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 19:28:02 +0000

Photo: Kaja Kozlowska

FLAP AND FEAR by Darren Lerigo

A theatre production by Imploding Fictions

Theatre Drachengasse 3rd – 22nd May 2010

Directed by Philip Thorne and Oystein Ulsberg Brager

Performed by Lauren McCullum and Rowena Hutson

Sound design by Laurence Short

For tickets and further information see

http://www.drachengasse.at

The play will be performed in English.

Imploding Fictions has been commisioned by Theater in der Drachengasse in Vienna to produce a new performance based on the theme ‘scaremongers’, as part of Drachengasse’s Newcomer-scheme. The performance will be part of an evening entitled Angstmacher.

A little girl is running through a flock of pigeons in a park. They all fly off in a panic, yet she poses no real threat. Later, they always come back.

Flap and Fear follows two London city pigeons as they seek refuge from a world of frights in Drachengasse’s Bar&Co. Flap and Fear is about our addiction to fear and how we return to it, over and over again. In fact – perhaps we are actually complicit with the scaremongers?

DARREN LERIGO

Darren Lerigo is a young British writer currently living in Madrid. He has previously run several online writing projects and published the satirical e-newspaper This Is Your Government Speaking. Darren is winner of the Haymarket Theatre Basingstoke’s ‘Write to Stage’ competition for his play Jester You Shall Sunset. He is currently dreaming of writing a show based on European folk tales, told by a woman playing a harp and backed by a trio of violinists in cages, a banjo playing ape dressed as a pirate and an accordion player with enormously long legs.

ROWENA HUTSON

Rowena graduated with a First Class Honours degree in European Theatre Arts from Rose Bruford College in 2008. She was awarded the Sir John Gielgud Charitable Trust Bursary for promising young actors completing their final year of study for 2007/2008. Rowena is a member of the theatre collective Sheer Lunacy, the permanent ensemble of Underground Cinema, and is the Acting Mentor for Rose Theatrical of London Ltd. She has toured Germany and France with White Horse Theatre Company and has performed in the United Kingdom, Holland and Australia. Credits include: Katrina Van Tassel in Sleepy Hollow, directed by Jaime McCarney; Ebbi in Unwrapped, directed by Luna Gawler; Cecily in The Importance of Being Earnest, directed by Claire Fisher, and The Lady In Red in Manilla for Sheer Lunacy.

LAUREN MCCULLUM

Lauren trained for three years at Rose Bruford College of Theatre and Performance in London, receiving a first class BA honours degree in European Theatre Arts in 2009. Lauren has also studied at the Estonian Academy of Music and Drama and part-time classes at The Circus Space. For the past two and a half years, Lauren has been working with theatre collective, the Fiasco Division, developing performances, events and a creative practice as a company. Lauren has been performing for nine years in various festivals and venues; including the Estonian Academy, Norway’s Operahuset Nordfjord, Reykjavik’s ArtFart and in her home country in London’s National Theatre and Southwark Playhouse, Bournemouth’s Kube Art Gallery and Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Past credits include The Queen in Luigi Pirandello’s Henry V, directed by Andrea Cussumano; Anne-Marie Stretter in India Song, directed by Monique Hunt; Iphigenia in Iphigenia in Taurus, directed by Alexia Kokkali; Natella Abashwilli in The Caucasian Chalk Circle, directed by Ingo Normet and numerous devised productions at Rose Bruford and with The Fiasco Division.

You can find a detailed performance schedule, information on ticket bookings and further information on Theater Drachengasse’s homepage:

http://www.drachengasse.at/

Thanks to photographer Kaja Kozlowska for letting us use her lovely photo of a running girl and flapping pigeons in the show! To see how the picture features in the production, make your way to Angstmacher and Flap and fear at Theater Drachengasse in Vienna, Austria.

- Oystein

Poster for the Angstmacher evening

which Flap and fear is part of

Norway.Today on at Southwark Playhouse!

Øystein — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 11:38:48 +0000

Our production of Norway.Today is on in London at Sothwark Playhouse on the 14th and 15th of November as part of Company of Angels’ Theatre Café Festival!

We recommend you book tickets now, because Southwark Playhouse operate with airline style ticketing, which means they are cheaper the earlier you book.

Box office: 020 7928 2811

We hope to see you there!

Øystein and Philip