Conversations, dispatches and ideas from the Bush Theatre.
The Bush is buzzing with preparations for RADAR 2013 which kicks off on Wednesday. We’ve caught up with the creators of Solfatara (showing on the 7 & 8 November)ATRESBANDES to find out more about a play described as “beautifully novel and terrifically bonkers” by ThreeWeeks.
Tell us about this work in one sentence.
A young couple’s frustrations explode with catastrophic honesty as a masked figure dares them to voice their true feelings; performed in Spanish with English surtitles, the translation takes on a subversive and hilarious life of its own.
What questions lie at the heart of the work; what are you asking the audience?
What are our everyday fears? When do they appear? The piece wants to examine aspects of the emotional strategies we use to negotiate our lives and relationships.
What sparked the original idea for this piece and how has it evolved?
From the beginning we wanted to work around our fears. In the devising process the company took inspiration from Antonio Marina’s Anatomy of Fear and Roland Barthes’ A Lover’s Discourse: Fragments. Solfatara is a devised piece featuring an inventive mix of witty spoken dialogue and poetic written text combined with elements of physical theatre.
What excites you about being part of RADAR 2013?
Showing your work in a foreign country always makes you think about the essence of the work, about what is important and what are just ornaments?
Do you feel your work is inspired by, responding to or reacting against any work from wider culture?
We always feel inspired by performers that we have met in our career. Performers that we have worked with, collaborated with in Festivals, or have done workshops with. In this aspect our influences are: El Conde de Torrefiel (Spanish theatre company based in Barcelona), Teatro Sotterraneo (Firenze), Sleepwalk Collective (Spain/UK), La Veronal (dance company)…
What direction do you feel yourself moving in creatively, and what comes next for you as a company/artist?
We have been travelling with Solfatara around Europe and this has give us the opportunity to see many other works, for this reason right now we are working on our new piece LOCUS AMOENUS. With this new work we want to consolidate our personal stamp and at the same time investigate new forms.
What songs would you add to our RADAR playlist to be played in the bar throughout the festival? We’re asking the audience and our Twitter followers to nominate songs that inspire them to break down walls and build bridges.
MENEO – TODA LOCA. Music is the genuine art without frontiers; the other arts just try to approach music
