You can hear our version of the song at foxproblem.bandcamp.com
So we've made a version of the Sea Change Song.
You can hear our version of the song at foxproblem.bandcamp.com
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A musical entitled 'A Pacifist's Guide to the War on Cancer' isn't the easiest of productions to sell. There will have been audience members shaken by the experience. You can't be sure what to expect. But I was immediately struck with admiration of the ambition I wanted to live it. We asked a friend to look after our children for the evening, for the first time ever! That's the strength of the show's pull for us.
I found the evening both rendered speech ineffective and prompted a deep desire for shared expression. In the way falling in love can do, having a baby or experiencing grief. I was surprised to see a show of such powerful innovation and nerve performed on the big Northcott stage in little Exeter. With its small touring schedule we are fortunate to catch it. I hope it is opened up to a national tour and beyond. The briefly mentioned hope at the end of the show, for the people working in the NHS to be properly thanked for their work, was to me an indicator of what next. Our bodies are all we are and when they go wrong we have only one thing on our mind, making ourselves right again. As a society we need to better understand this vulnerability, it doesn't matter if you never get ill, people do, all around us, it is part of life. We need to make sure people are nurtured by a health and social care system reflective of the huge wealth of this country. Pushing forward real, particular stories and opening up the truth of those lives to each of us in the audience, acts as an insistence that these individual experiences of ultimate vulnerability are all our business. Brave and cancer are words often used together. Bravely fighting cancer, almost as if it were a choice. What is difficult is dealing with cancer in your own body, those you love or those in your care. Making or watching art that gives voice to those people isn't hard, it feels like work we should all involve ourselves in. As brave as the show undoubtedly is, I felt that we, the audience, were only just getting going. I felt we could have been given further permission to find voice and expression with the emotion generated by the work. I don't think, at this point, singing together could be justifiably called "cheesy" by anyone. I would say be even more brave Bryony. "Push it, push it real good." Alternately I heard a chap say "I wish the second act had been done like the first," as he got in his car to drive home. I suspect that may have been more a reference to the painful wait of the MRI scan than the broken down artifice by the end. But how could there be a performance about cancer without a painful wait? I was left with lots of questions, none of which I asked at the post-show Q&A, at that point I was still a little lost in the world that had been created for us all. Q: Was there a stand-by option in case the person at the end felt it was too much to go on and speak? It was clearly a difficult thing to do and I was surprised to learn that people will do it more than once. It is a lot to take on as the whole performance seems to rest on their physical presence at the end. Q: How did you decide where to stop with the offer to the audience? Did you trial it with fresh audience members in rehearsal? Do you feel tempted to push it further? Q: Making work for social change, do you want to be political? Is there an impulse to do so and what is it restrained by? For instance the degradation of the NHS by this government is so starkly clear, I wonder do those in the production want to make a point about that? |
Victoria & GarethWe make friendly, innovative, uplifting, quality contemporary devised theatre performances, workshops, site-specific and community projects. Archives
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