Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff
The Sanger: Wed 8 + Fri 10 June, 7pm; Thu 9 + Sat 11 June, 9pm
Tân Mewn Drain: Thu 9 + Sat 11 June, 7pm; Fri 10 June, 9pm
It is all too easy to live your life ignorant of the conflicts that occur in far away places. Contained within distant lives and processed through newspapers and ceremony, the energy, excitement and trauma of warfare is often diluted and repackaged as Other People’s Experience.
Countering this guilty and distant view of current affairs, Sherman Cymru brings two plays from the midsts of conflict as part of their RAW programme for new work. As the name suggests, RAW focuses on delivering stripped-back and honest pictures. Here, in two works entitled The Sanger and Tân Mewn Drain the Sherman’s exciting programme will bring our focus to war-struck zones as it puts new writing – with all its gritty honesty and power – firmly on the frontline.
Written by war veteran Foster Marks, The Sanger takes scenes jotted down in a TA Radio Operator’s spare time and brings them into a very different kind of dramatic setting. Describing the creative process from script to play, Marks observes how RAW has turned “some longhand scenes hastily scribbled down in the backwaters of Helmand into a polished piece of theatre.” Directed by Sherman Cymru’s Associate Director Amy Hodge, this work is set to be violently contemporary, delivered with humour and pathos.
Supplementing this, Dyfed Edwards’ Welsh language Tân Mewn Drain delves deeper into the ethics of conflict, testing the dynamics and morality of warfare with an intelligent focus on the ordinary man at the centre. Edwards articulates, “I’m delighted that Tân Mewn Drain will be staged. A play doesn’t truly come alive until it is produced – it is merely a blueprint until actors act it, a director directs, designers design.”
So as the impact of war clashes with the power of theatre, allow these refreshing insights to bring you compellingly close to some very distant worlds.
Tickets: £8/£6. Info: 029 2030 4400 / www.chapter.org
