I’m on Ebay looking for a filing cabinet that’s big enough to fit a human being in one of its drawers. Apparently I might be able to get one in Stockport. If I can collect it myself and bring it back to Oxford. The cabinet will play a crucial part in the set of The Fireflies, one of the four brand new student plays that OUDS is putting on in 7th week this term at the Burton Taylor.
Written by fresher David Shackleton, The Fireflies (which will be directed by Rimika Sollaway) is an absurdist piece about a Filer and his boy that will run in tandem with Revival (Carla Neuss), a play set in a unique bar where telling a story gets you a drink. Sounds like a beautiful system to me, that is until, one by one, the rules begin to break. Revival will be directed by Sarah Perry.
Come into the BT on the Wednesday or Friday, or for the Saturday matinee, and you can see the second pair of plays. Toffee is a play by Charlotte Geater, in which we meet a boy called Alfie whose girlfriend is missing and whose records are on repeat. It’s partner is Instead of Beauty (Richard O’Brien), a character-driven black comedy about coming of age.
These four scripts were chosen from thirty-seven entries for the festival, with four directors then selected to take charge. The journey from page to stage has already led to some exciting decisions: Sarah Perry will be giving Revival a circus twist, complete with atrapeze, having enlisted the help of SIL3NC3 illusionist Simon Kempner. This made for some unexpected questions in the auditions last week: ‘Can you juggle? What about tap dancing?’ Rimi Solloway will transform the onstage theatre technicians of The Fireflies, as specified in the script, into characters who gracefully but systematically tear apart the routine life of the Filer, and also wants to experiment with a creature that lives inside that filing cabinet.
In Instead of Beauty characters’ nationalities have changed, supported by director Abhishek Bhattacharyya’s detailed biographies, which give his actors information on their roles stretching back to early childhood. If this play, with its quick-witted but highly real interchanges between its four characters – two boys, two girls, six relationships – lies at the opposite end of the spectrum to the absurdism of The Fireflies‘ then Toffee, directed by Meg Bartlett, sits somewhere in the middle.
Even as Alfie’s friends try to comfort him and get him to carry on with his life after his girlfriend’s disappearance, they are very aware of, and keen to talk to, the spectators in front of them, and in performance the audience will become another character in the drama.
All four plays have been cast and are now in rehearsal, and the NWF promises to be one of the highlights of this term.
It also has an important role to play in terms of student drama: this is a festival that offers new writers the chance to see their work live on stage, and to develop it, as well as allowing directors and actors to play with completely fresh, untouched material. In fact, the cast of Revival have already pledged to try drinking every type of alcohol mentioned in their script – all in the name of method acting, of course.
