WELL-FILLING TIMES by Penny Dolan

It's the first of March, already? 

 

Looking back, this last month has been a quiet re-filling of the well: the getting of experiences - smaller or greater - that can help mind and imagination when too, too much has drained away. None exotic or far from home, some alone, some not, some unexpected but useful even so.

                                           

 

A piano recital dazzled with powerful pieces by Bartok and Ligeti; an EoS film about Michelangelo showed the huge weight of his life and work and then, at this year's first Salon North, three speakers talked about life and happiness - and the books they had just written on these themes. I am now learning about Aristotle who, when banished, did not drink hemlock and leave his family to whatever destitution followed like Socrates, but went quietly away from fame and lived his last couple of years attending to his own family and farm in the country: there's public life and there's real life.

                                       
 

Then came a smaller delight, but usefully timed, in the form of a couple of Joanna Trollope's novels that saw me through some insomniac nights. One was a book group choice, the other suggested by a librarian, so both titles were a given not a selected pleasure. Trollope's calm, competent storytelling matched my three-in-the-morning need, along with their sunshine and comfortable lifestyles, and a bit about family troubles not my own. Her writer's skill certainly improved my night's watch, and though other books are available, for this time and place, these novels just fitted.

                               

More excitingly, there was a trip across to York Theatre Royal to see Bluebeard. the latest production from Emma Rice's 'Wise Children' company. Though her dark fairytale links into recent violence against women, the performance is a joy: fiercely full of movement, music and song, dramatic stage effects and wry and angry humour. Sometimes the notes, voices and scenes that you need are full of noise. lights, action and even an array of theatrical stage traditions, such as that wierd sawing-a-woman-in-half trick. Here's a pretty pink Bluebeard image, very unlike last night's show.

 

                                                

 

Most of all, maybe, there was the NTLive Vanya, a new version of the Chekhov play, co-created by the actor Andrew Scott, writer Simon Stephen, producer Sam Yates and Rosanna Vise, stage designer.

 

                                                     

 

 Scott plays every role, lightly moving between characters,  using subtle changes of voice, telling gestures and a few props to reveal the different energies of each person. He became Vanya, keeping the estate going; Michael, the despairing doctor; Sonia, the housekeeping daughter, desperate for love; Alexander, the vain, elderly, ailing film director; Helena, his beautiful second wife, and a couple more. Scott was amazing, moving between one portrayal and another. In one scene, where two hands wrestle over an emptying bottle, I felt I 'saw' two people, as well as scenes between Michael and Helena.

                                                   

For a moment, as I saw Scott move, alone, through all these characters on screen, I thought about all the writers who do this trick too. 

 

Alone in their minds, writers shift their focus from one character to another, secretly changing the sets and scenes and lighting in their heads as they work on, as it comes into their mind. Not as astonishing or as noticeably as Scott, of course, to anyone, but definitely not a nothing of a skill.

 

So, if you are a writer, keep acting on inside there, in your own quiet way - pen to paper or key to screen - and I hope your march will be a useful one.

 

 

Penny Dolan

 

ps Apologies! A draft section of this post appeared below. I am hoping that it is now fully removed.