Supported by Arts Council funding, Hang Lenny Pope was the company's second co-production with Warwick Arts Centre, in Coventry.
It was the first full length piece to follow Street Trilogy, and alongside 2005's cloud:burst, was the second installment in a new body of work, that at the time of writing this page is ongoing. An important production for Theatre Absolute, HLP proved to be a high quality production, which although lacking in national coverage due to not playing in London, won many new fans and opened the door to new relationships in high quality venues such as Northern Stage, and Plymouth Theatre Royal.
"This is theatre at its best. There are no gimmicks, no cheap shots, just wonderful words and glorious actors. The strong cast of four are thoroughly outstanding and completely grounded in O'Connell's compelling language, frantically dancing in and out of past and present with urgency for absolution. At just over an hour, Hang Lenny Pope is a reminder that it is quality, not quantity that can transport us to another world and leave us
breathless." British Theatre Guide
Continuing a dedication to creating heightened and highly imagined worlds, Hang Lenny Pope appealed to established audiences, and to those who may not have been to the theatre before. It is a play about a family, seen from the perspective of the parents.
"A gripping, emotionally raw hour of theatre." Plymouth Herald
A rarity in modern day life, Ray makes bespoke coffins for Brewer's Funeral Directors. He’s done it for the last twenty-five years. As the play begins, he has just made his son’s coffin. Lenny’s death, we learn, is not just tragic, but seemingly inevitable. In his short 21 years, both charming and violent, Lenny Pope has caused havoc in the lives of Ray and Caroline, and across the town. It is the death of nineteen year old Mia, Lenny’s girlfriend, that has brought about Lenny’s own death. People in the town believe he killed her. Did he? It is this perceived injustice on Lenny’s part that brings him to appear to his dad on this evening before his funeral. In a race against time, Lenny tries to dissuade his dad from making the lid of the coffin; if he makes the lid then that means it’s all over, without a lid, there’s always a chance of escape. The play combines many layers: loss, love and hate, to create a moving, morally ambiguous, and provocative piece of theatre that takes a hard stare at urban UK, where lives can be lost in the scramble to be seen, where anonymity allows tragedy to breed, and where families are rocked by the seismic struggles of identity.
"A punchy new production...we experience a raw emotion that surfaces in an unsentimental and honest way." The Stage
The production maintained many of the long term artistic collaborations that the company has made since 1999, when Street Trilogy first emerged. Composer Andy Garbi, lighting designer James Farncombe and set designer Janet Vaughan have become central to the theatrical aesthetic of the company, which embraces the twin notions of simplicity and clarity. Like previous work, Hang Lenny Pope eschewed fussiness and over-elaboration in favour of clear and passionate storytelling where character and narrative are sent out to do the work.
"Pulls no punches...quality performances...well worth checking out." Coventry Evening Telegraph
Tour dates, 2007.
Warwick Arts Centre, Coventry
12 – 17 March
Drum Theatre, Plymouth
20-24 March
The Point, Eastleigh
27-28 March
Corn Exchange, Newbury
29-30 March
MAC, Birmingham
17-18 April
Lakeside Arts Centre, Nottingham
19-21 April
Northern Stage, Newcastle
24-28 April
Tobacco Factory, Bristol
3-5 May
Reviews of Hang Lenny Pope 2007
Royal Opera House, London, and New York City, USA 2006
Written by Chris O'Connell, cloud:burst premiered in autumn 2005, and was revived in 2006. It is a play for one voice. Following the epic qualities of Street Trilogy, the company's instinct with its next piece of work was to cut everything back. Chris went to extremes and decided not just on cutting back in terms of design, but cast also! Having always wanted to create a play for one voice, Chris started to write cloud:burst in October 2004. It was given its first airing, with ten minutes (and that's all there was at that stage!) performed at BAC's Oktoberfest scratch night, in London.
The actor mad enough and daft enough to work with Chris was Graeme Hawley, a Theatre Absolute stalwart who has appeared in Raw and Street Trilogy. The two of them pledged there should be more to come from the ten minutes; they'd tasted a tangible and moving story and were eager to find the key to the bigger story.
The company was invited to take part in in the Firsts Festival, held in October/November 2005, at the Royal Opera House, London, and so Chris went away to write the rest of cloud:burst. What emerged was a play/poem, driven by stunning imagery and a rhythmic text. cloud:burst had become a 45 minute piece, which, coupled with a soundscape from Andy Garbi that took inspiration from the text and both complimented and deepened the meaning of the play, a wonderful set by Janet Vaughan that somehow floated in the space when captured by James Farncombe's lights, Theatre Absolute opened cloud:burst to a full house in the Linbury Studio, Royal Opera House, London, on 31st October, 2005.
The play was brilliantly received.
It didn't end there. The reception to the play was so good that we wanted more for it. Creating a piece for two nights only is both exciting, yet somehow dissatisfying. Shortly afterwards, cloud:burst was invited to perform for three weeks as part of the Brits Off Broadway Festival, at 59E59 Theatre, in New York City. Supported by the Arts Council of England, Coventry City Council and The Helen Hamlyn Trust, we opened there on 24th May 2006. Another great experience was had by all, and Graeme delivered a performance of great skill and discipline, diving into his sphere of concentration all alone on a stage in a distant American city for three weeks, (altho' a very exciting place it was to be for three weeks). Plans are being made to take cloud:burst on the road again, subject to everyone's availability, and funds, in 2008.
Reviews of cloud:burst 2005/06
Written by Chris O'Connell, and published by Oberon Books, Street Trilogy is both poetic and brutal. The three plays, Car, Raw and Kid, brought together under one title, toured the UK from March to May, 2005. Each play was directed by Mark Babych and produced individually from 1999 to 2003. (See the individual pages on Car, Raw and Kid below.) Then came the masterplan! It had always been the company's ambition to put all three plays together, and tour them. Big pots of money were raised, and the plan began.
Rehearsals started in Coventry on 4th January 2005. A cast of ten actors played sixteen roles between them, and the show was manned by three crew. The trilogy opened at Warwick Arts Centre, Coventry on 8th February. The idea was to allow audiences a chance to see all three plays in one sitting, or to cherry pick the plays over the period of a week. On tour, Theatre Absolute spent a week at each venue visited, and surrounded the plays with an intensive workshop programme. Young audiences in particular loved the trilogy, and were revelatory in their patience and appreciation as huge groups from schools, youth offending teams and individual carers groups, (mothers, fathers etc) sat through six hours of theatre. Of course there were breaks in between each play!
And our regular audiences, those who enjoy uncompromising storytelling coupled with new urban writing for the stage, was just as appreciative.
Feedback and responses were fantastic, it was a truly amazing piece to tour. Huge, epic and passionate. We're very proud of it. (See reviews of Street Trilogy)
So what was it about?
Street Trilogy deals with the possibility of change, and with worlds and atmospheres in which people on the edges of society, survive pressure. Each play starts at a crisis point: emotion, physicality, violence. Notions of crime and punishment sit heavily at the heart of the trilogy. Those who perpetrate and those who suffer from crime, are brought together in heightened and dramatic situations which push the narrative to an edge, blowing into a maelstrom the relationship between conventional, privileged society, and the chaotic rituals of the criminal and the alienated.
"O’Connell’s talent is to capture the frenetic semi-articulate speech patterns and desperate lunges for excitement that evoke his character’s insecure, dispossessed existences. They do not inhabit a society; they live in a constant state of urban guerilla warfare." London Evening Standard.
Mark Babych, the director of all three plays, talks of the "strange and haunting worlds" and the "burning heat of emotional and psychological intensity." The internal landscape of the plays are huge, so that no one is ever just a car thief, no one is ever just a mugger, no one is ever just a victim.
Produced by Julia Negus, Car and Raw and Kid have won awards and played to sell out audiences on national and international tours. Inexperienced and young, as well as initiated and established audiences, have consistently responded to the intensity of their experience. It is this one aspect, the intensity of any given moment, that defines a Theatre Absolute play.
Performing the plays as a trilogy offered a unique opportunity for an audience to absorb the full impact of the work, seeing the progression not only from one play to another, but also the artistic and creative journey Theatre Absolute has been on. It also marked the completion of a body of work, which in turn has signalled the beginning of a new creative phase, seen in new productions like cloud:burst, and Hang Lenny Pope.
"Impressively visceral." Independent on Sunday
Tour dates, 2005.
Warwick Arts Centre, Coventry
8th-12th February
bac, London
15th February-5th March
Brewery Arts Centre, Kendal
9th March-12th March
Library Theatre, Manchester
15th-19th March
Lawrence Batley Theatre, Huddersfield
28th March-1st April
Coneygre Arts Centre, Tipton
4th April-9th April
The Y, Leicester
11th April-16th April
Pegasus Theatre, Oxford
21st April- 23rd April
Tobacco Factory, Bristol
3rd May-7th May
mac, Birmingham
10th May-14th May
Lakeside Arts Centre, Nottingham
18th-21st May
Reviews of Street Trilogy 2005
"A triumph" The List
"...theatre from the gut - for the heart." Metro
"Another brilliant play." The Sunday Times
Work began on Kid after the completion of the Raw Tour, in May 2002, and the play was workshopped through our Writing House process. The first workshop was in September 2002, and then again in April 2003. The Writing House provided a great platform for Chris to go on and produce new and improved drafts, and saw the continuing development of Theatre Absolute's process for developing new work. The ensemble feel of the company also grew as people who had worked on, or appeared in Car and Raw, were involved again in Kid.
The play previewed for five nights at the Belgrade Theatre, 15th-19th July, 2003, opening on what at the time was the hottest day of the year. The reaction was fantastic and sent the play off to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, where it performed at the Pleasance Cavern all through the August.
Reaction to Kid was incredible. Audiences were blown away again by the intensive demands of the play, commenting on the power of its narrative, how according to one it was "the most authentic and real show I've seen in Edinburgh, and I've seen a lot of shows." The critical reaction was also good, seeing the show listed consistently in Critics Choice and Pick of The Day for various broadsheet papers, but it also felt that a mindset had prevailed for some people - born out of the shift in world order since Sept 2001 - that meant some critics were dominated by thoughts of global politics, by 'theatre's' need to address these issues. Kid and the Street Trilogy operates not wholly in this world, although some might argue that domestic and global strifes are all interelated, and there was a sense that our work during this particular year was 'outside' the circle.
As the third instalment in Street Trilogy, Kid certainly feels very different to the other two plays. Delivering a combination of the high octane blast of Car, and the aching intensity of Raw, the play is drawn through a bullish humour and hardened by a heightened fear of retribution and punishment; it's about, although not literally, the characters from Car and Raw who have become adults, and who are trying to engineer change in their lives and forge a family life that eschews the temptations and ills of their past. It is ultimately about justice, and being responsible for one's actions, about going backwards to face demons before being able to go forward and find a personal redemption.
A matured and purer play than both Car and Raw, Kid has proved itself to be a truly exciting last play in Theatre Absolute's Street Trilogy.
"Gripping drama.." Guardian
"Brilliantly staged.." Time Out
"High energy..makes you want to lie down in a darkened room." Guardian
There were eighteen months between Car and Raw. Crucial development time in which the writer and the creative team found time to breathe, and build relationships. Like its predecessor, Raw went through two detailed and extensive workshops sessions in The Writing House, testing its narrative potential and the physical world of the play.
Raw pointed towards a softer and more ambient approach than Car, yet beneath it lay something far darker and excruciating in its intensity.
Co-produced with the Belgrade Theatre, Coventry, Raw is the story of a girl gang led by Lex, and their freefall into chaos and violence after a young boy is attacked by Lex on a train.
Its first preview was in Coventry on July 17th, 2001, and it premiered at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival the next month. Excitement and anticipation was high for the play; things started differently to Car, the buzz was different, but it grew, and the play fulfilled its potential and sent audiences out of the Pleasance Cavern gasping for air.
Critical reaction was more varied than Car; some loved it, some hated it. The uncompromising intensity of the play left audience members to fend for themselves; emotionally, the narrative changed hands many times, some of it was morally ambiguous, especially as the character of Rueben was introduced, a man with a suspect culture, infiltrating the world of Lex and her friends, seemingly bringing good, yet potentially as dangerous as the people he was seeking to change.
In the second week of the festival, Raw was awarded a Fringe First for Innovation and Outstanding New Work. It meant a lot, it was the next play after the massive success of Car. It was second album syndrome. So Raw, understandably, was important.
After the success of Edinburgh, supported by the Arts Council’s National Touring Programme, Raw began a tour of the UK, beginning at bac, London. There were many triumphs, notably Belfast at the Old Museum Arts Centre where over a three night period at least 80% of the audience were aged between fourteen and eighteen; at times it was hard to tell the audience from the cast, baseball caps and tracksuits everywhere.
The Raw experience finished on May 18th 2002, at the Royal Exchange, Manchester, playing over three nights to a sell out audience.
"If anyone asks: ‘What can theatre do that television and film can’t?’ the answer is: ‘See Raw’. " Clive Barker.
"Raw comes at you hard. A riveting portrait of young lives on the edge: refusing to be controlled by society, but struggling to keep control themselves. Words are hissed and truncated, whispered and desperate. Quiet impassiveness alternates with explosions of decision and violence. This is a production of haunting sounds." The Scotsman
"Real gold" The Scotsman
"Searing script...something close to poetry." Guardian
"Hardcore entertainment." The Independent.
Car began life in 1999. Co-produced with the Belgrade Theatre, Coventry, it is the story of four joyriders and the man whose car they steal.
The play premiered in Coventry on June 22nd 1999, at the city’s Transport Museum. Transferring to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in the August, Car became one of the must see plays of that year. It was a huge hit, winning a Fringe First for Outstanding New Work and Innovation in the festival’s first week, and playing to sell out audiences at the Pleasance Cavern for the rest of its run.
After Edinburgh, Car went straight to the Pleasance Theatre, London. Again the impact was fantastic, and Theatre Absolute was awarded a Time Out Live Award for Best New Play on the London Fringe, 1999.
People wanted Car. And so Car toured. Twelve weeks of pain and lots of gain, as it dragged itself across the UK, thrilling audiences and venues alike. In March 2000, supported by the British Council, Car performed as part of the Londres Sur Scene festival in Paris, Theaterszene Europa in Cologne, and the Fresh From Britain tour of Ireland, playing in Letterkenny, Galway, Cork, and Dublin.
After two cast changes, and a fest of fundraising by Julia Negus, Car closed its garage doors in June of 2000.
"An unforgettable piece of theatre." Manchester Evening News.
"...desperate energy, like a dance of death." The Observer
For a bit anyway...
Until October 2000 actually, when, supported by the British Council, Mark Babych and Chris O’Connell went to Tartu in Estonia to produce Car in association with the Vanemuine Theatre. Re-translated as Auto, the play opened in December the same year, and played as a part of the theatre’s repertory.
In the years since Car's original creation and recent revival as part of the Street Trilogy project in 2005, the play has been used on serveal occasions in workshop and introductory sessions to drama for young offenders, to prisoners in Pentonville Prison, and most recently in December 2006, Theatre Absolute, in association with Creative Partnerships, rehearsed scenes from Car with a group of year 10 students from Centre 4, a Pupil Referral Unit in the north of Coventry, which resulted in a performance by the students to an invited audience.
"We could draw a comparison between Car and the repertory of Artaud’s theatre of cruelty - shocking pictures of extreme violence, frightful brutality..The danger that emotions cannot be kept under control and will cause "mighty explosions of the human matter", is constantly looming." Andrus Org 'Sirp' (Estonia) December 2000
Written by Chris O’Connell
Co-produced with the Belgrade Theatre, Coventry.
Premiered at Coventry’s Arts Alive Festival, Belgrade Studio, May 1997.
Written by Chris O’Connell
Premiered Belgrade Studio, Coventry, June 1996
Edinburgh Festival, August 1st-26th
Written by Mahmood Shoaibi
Premiered Belgrade Studio, Coventry, May 1995
Regional and national tour
Written by Chris O’Connell
Premiered Brewery Arts Centre, Burton on Trent, October 1994
Regional and national tour
Written by Peter Wynne-Wilson
Premiered Belgrade Studio, Coventry, June 1994
Regional and national tour
Written by Chris O'Connell
Premiered Belgrade Studio, Coventry, May 1993
Written by Chris O'Connell
Premiered Belgrade Studio, Coventry, August 1992
Watch this space.
Our new production for Autumn 2008 will be Zero, written by Chris O'Connell, and directed by Matt Aston, produced in association with Warwick Arts Centre.
Chaotic, fast, and furious, Zero is an explosive and anarchic stare at the ethics of torture, and the curse of censorship.
Twenty years from now, in the face of a feast of unabated nihilism, hundreds of camps have been built to torture and gain information at any cost, from those who aim to blow apart the rich pickings of a world that is wealthy beyond its dreams.
Alex, a translator at Camp Zero, seeks to tell the world of the brutal regime within the camps, and finds his life is suddenly on the line. Survival is paramount, death may be inevitable, but the truth has to be told.
"They’re outside. They’re waiting for me to open the door. You should see them, devils in their shadows. Even if you write down what I tell you and you get the world to read the book, I don’t think they’ll be bothered. They’re not frightened of the truth. What hope have we got?"
ZERO - tour 2008
September/October
29th Sept – 4th Oct (29th Preview £7.50 tickets)
Warwick Arts Centre, Coventry (PREMIERE)
7th & 8th Oct
Lakeside Arts Centre, Nottingham
10th & 11th Oct
Theatre Royal, York
14th Oct
Brewery Arts Centre, Kendal
16th & 17th Oct
The North Wall, Oxford
21st – 22nd Oct
Contact Theatre, Manchester
23rd Oct
Corn Exchange, Newbury
28th – 29th Oct
Lincoln School of Performing Arts, Lincoln
31st Oct
Brewhouse, Taunton
November
1st Nov
Bristol Theatre Net – venue tbc
4th Nov
Arena, Wolverhampton
6th – 8th Nov
Citizens Theatre, Glasgow
11th – 29th (11th & 12th Preview tickets £8 only)
Tristan Bates Theatre, London