We are attempting to challenge perceived parameters of classical music and traditional narrative theatre, and require support in the development of this ambitious project. For Director Rosemary McKenna, the project is a continued exploration of European modes of dramatic presentation, and an opportunity to interrogate the role of music in theatre. 

 

We wish to spend two weeks in collaboration with actors, musicians and designers to develop an innovative performance that fuses techniques of Heiner Goebbels' ‘music theatre’ with a reinterpretation of the iconic mythological figure, Eurydice. Our focus will be on the music and visual elements of the piece, as we attempt to create a uniquely multi-form, immersive theatrical experience. 

 

Inspired by the inherent theatricality of the conductor in a classical music setting, we are exploring how, as a central character in a theatre piece, the conductor can act as a conduit between music and narrative. Music does not serve as a supplementary aspect to the performance, rather it becomes a challenging partner for actors, generates new meaning and changes the course of action. With four members of Téada string orchestra, and an original score by Jane Deasy, we want to give music a unique status and power.

 

The mythological context for the piece supplies a wealth of compelling content from which we will draw contemporary resonance. In our reinvention of one of the first operas that survived our times (Euridice, Jacopo Peri, 1600), we will look at the story from the untold feminist perspective, submerging our characters in the harsh, magic reality of the myth whilst giving them contemporary consciousness and dilemmas. We will look at Eurydice’s tragic downfall to Hades abstractly, as a consequence of her inability to cope with the demands and injustices of a patriarchal society. Inspired by Colmn Tóibin’s The Testament of Mary, Sarah Kane’s Phaedra's Love and Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad, writer Joanna Crawley will fuse new material with classical and contemporary source texts to create a post-dramatic work which challenges our perception of the docile and ineffectual protagonist Eurydice within a wider social context. 

 

In collaboration with designers 3D projectionists, we will work in a highly visual way, exploding a traditional classical music setting into a highly visceral spectacle, a sensory over-load that examines the nature of myth-making and theatricality itself.