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JUMP TO THIS MONTH'S ARCHIVE CHOICE: Schwellenangst by Colin Ellwood

A Brilliant New Chilean Take on a Familiar Fairy Tale Story

17/4/2020

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​
Friday 17th April and with the new limit of 12 participants in the first of what will now be weekly zoom sessions we had a brilliant time with The S.A.D. Summers of Princess Diana, by Chilean playwright Carla Zuñiga, translated by Fran Olivares, who joined us for the reading. This proved a wonderful scrambled, curdled, scabrous fairly-tale/mythical reconceiving of the demise of the the unfortunate princess, complete with sons 'Guillermo' and 'Henri' scurrying across town in furry animal disguise to make contact with the Princess's cross-dressing ex-butler; while viciously censorious retainers 'Brunhilda' and 'Dorothea' 'gaslight' the princess and repeatedly adulterate her meals with dead rodents, aborted animal foetuses and ultimately an amputated human foot.  The palace Fool, after perpetrating possibly the most excruciatingly inappropriate slapstick routine in dramatic literature, is subject to a well-deserved fatal defenestration. Overall shockingly and transgressively funny as well as deeply poignant and heartfelt. And within its dream-distortions,  also a subtle and astute 'outsider' analysis of a deep cultural and social malaise.


Regular group participant Ami Sayers writes:

While we were reading this play on Friday I kept thinking, this is the play I always wish would come out whenever I sit down to write. This has only happened to me with the work of two other playwrights, Sarah Kane and Philip Ridley. Both British, both grotesque yet profoundly poetic in their approach to language, both unafraid of raw, visceral emotion and the power of a strong theatrical image that feels at once like it was scribbled in crayon by a child and by someone with a lifetime of pain and suffering clawing to be let out. Both of these writers are controversial and divisive, in my mind the only way to be as a playwright. 

For me, Carla Zuniga manages to both evoke the work of both of these playwrights and create her own beautifully unique, contemporary voice that feels as relevant and poignant now as it would have done the day after Princess Diana's death. Because it is about Diana yes, but it is not just about Diana. It is about the many, many women like her (and not just women but those who do not fit the mould of what is expected of them by society). It is about Anne Boleyn, it is about Marilyn Monroe, Amy Winehouse, Caroline Flack and countless other 'icons' or 'idols' who have failed to live up to expectations (because how could they possibly). It is about the scrutiny the media places upon such figures- as we see so palpably in the scene between the journalist (who has got herself stuck in the window of the tower Diana is locked inside) when she asks "what would you say to bulimics who are going to read this interview' and Princess Diana replies, echoing King Lear's Cordelia 'nothing'. She is exhausted by this continual scrutiny and intrusion of her life, it is one of the reasons she is 'bulimic' and yet she is being held up and expected to be an icon, a role model to those suffering in the same way. They analyse and scrutinise and tear her apart. Her life is made entertainment, her life is made a moral tale of how a woman should or should not behave, she cannot win. Amy Winehouse could not win, Caroline Flack could not win, they were pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed until they fell, metaphorically, from that tower in which we had imprisoned them. 

There are so many other layers to this exquisite piece of writing, but the above is what hit me in the face, it is what made me shake as I read the first scene out loud, along with other wonderful members of the Presence reading group last Friday. The voice of a woman so profoundly exhausted by what has been thrown at her, by being inside her own skin, by feeling that she is going mad and not knowing whether she really is or whether her cruel, cruel maids are gaslighting her or if indeed it is both- because one is the product of the other. Her sheer exhaustion, her shame, her anger, her pain. 

Her final speech is one that I feel many writers are attempting currently, but none (that I have read) have managed to encapsulate such a strong, angry female voice that still somehow feels relevant to all genders. Despite her biting gnashing anger at the patriarchy, misogyny becomes a human problem that we are all victims of. To write something that does this is no small task, I have tried and failed many a time.

I feel privileged to have been a part of this reading. I wish this play every success in the future. It will raise eyebrows, spark anger, divide audiences. It will be accused, I am sure, of attempting to 'burn down the palace' as Diana commands toward the end of the play. But we need writing like this in the theatre now, we need it, we need it, we need it, we need it.

​


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1 Comment
Anna Mors
29/4/2020 07:23:19 am

I so hope one of these Fridays I'll be able to join in!

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    ​INDEX of dates:​​
    • WINTER 2021
    • AUTUMN 2020
    • ​SUMMER 2020​
    • SPRING 2020​
    • SPRING 2019
    • SUMMER-AUTUMN 2017
    • AUTUMN 2016-WINTER 2017​
    • WINTER 2015-SPRING 2016
    • SUMMER 2015
    • WINTER-SPRING 2015​
    • AUTUMN 2014
    • ​SPRING-SUMMER 2014​
    ​INDEX of playwrights and plays:
    • Maxwell Anderson: Key Largo
    • Aleksandr Blok: ​The Stranger
    • Edward Bond: Lear
    • ​Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Dramatic Scenes
    • Oystein Brager: ​Cloud Yellow
    • Fredrik Brattberg: ​The Returnings
    • Bertold Brecht: ​Schweyk in the Second World War
    • Helen Budge: ​Grey Collar
    • Joseph Chaikin: ​When the World was Good
    • John Chancer
    • Kia Corthon: ​7/11
    • Noel Coward: Star Chamber
    • ​Don DeLillo: The Day Room
    • Per Olov Enquist
    • Regine Folkman Rosness: ​Exposed
    • Jon Fosse: ​Freedom
    • Julia Gale: ​A Beautiful Room to Die In
    • Griselda Gambaro: Asking Too Much,  Mother by Trade​, Siamese Twins, Whatever Happens Happens, Dear Ibsen, I am Nora, Asking Too Much
    • Carla Grauls: ​Made for Him
    • David Grieg: ​Being a Norwegian
    • Jaroslav Hasek: ​The Good Soldier Schweyk
    • Jacob Hirdwall: Emperor Fukishima
    • Robert Holman: ​A Breakfast of Eels, ​Rafts and Dreams
    • Odon Von Horvath: ​Judgement Day
    • Henrik Ibsen: The Lady from the Sea
    • Jean-Claude Van Italie: ​The Serpent
    • Simon Jaggers: Breaking Horses ​
    • Elfride Jelinek: Wut (Rage)
    • Charlotte Keatley: Emilie's Reason
    • Lucy Kirkwood: NSWF
    • Marie-Héléne Larose-Truchon: ​Midnight
    • ​Maurice Maeterlinck: The Blind
    • Hannah Moscovitch: ​Little One
    • Gregory Motton: ​A Worthless Man ​
    • Rona Munro: ​Basement Flat
    • Maria Nygren: Hummingbird,   Missing Cat
    • John Osborne: ​A Patriot for Me
    • Nick Payne: ​The Frugal Horn
    • Harlold Pinter: ​A Night Out
    • Luigi Pirandello: Absolutely (Perhaps)! ​
    • Gerlind Reinshagen: Sunday's Children ​
    • Friedrich Schiller: Joan of Arc ​
    • Arthur Schnitzler: ​La Ronde
    • Sam Shepard: A Short Life of Trouble, The War In Heaven,  ​When the World was Good​
    • ​Laurie Slade: Supermoon
    • N.F. Simpson
    • Simon Stephens: ​Country Music, ​ Herons, Rage
    • Nis-Momme Stockman: ​The Man Who Ate the World
    • Ramon del Valle-Inclan: Bohemian Lights
    • David Watson: That's What I Call Music
    • John Webster: ​The White Devil
    • ​John Whiting: Saint's Day
    • Oliver Yellop: ​I am Gavrilo Princip
    • Carla Zuniga: ​I'd Rather Be Eaten by Dogs, ​S.A.D. Summers of Princess Diana
    INDEX of articles:​
    • Dellilo Delight (17/3/21)​
    • Country House Catastrophes (17/3/21)​​
    • Key Largo... in need of upping the ante from largo to andante (17/3/21)​
    • Ibsen in the Dolls'/Dog House (22/1/21)
    • Commitment versus Accomodation (22/1/21)
    • An American Primal Moment (22/1/21)
    • Beauty and Terror in the unknown (22/1/21)
    • Schiller - Thriller or Filler? (24/10/20)
    • From Summer to Autumn, from Eden to the Fall (21/10/20)
    • Our 'Summer Season' of Readings (15/9/20)
    • A Season-Concluding Strudel (30/6/20)
    • The Sacred, the Profane and the Reconfiguring of Action (22/6/20)
    • Spartacus and The Butterfly Effect (15/6/20)
    • ​Writing a Forgotten Person (10/6/20)​
    • Fragile Worlds (8/6/20)
    • Contrasting Gender Agendas? (8/6/20)
    • Imagined Realities (24/5/20)
    • Freedom and Confinement (19/5/20)
    • Social Restrictions amidst a Covert ‘Epidemic’ of Lawlessness (9/5/20)
    • Rage and Transfiguration (4/5/20)
    • An Epic, Surreal Journey on a Raft across Dreams by C. E.
    • ​'S.A.D. Summers of Princess Diana': a Taste of an Ending by C. E. 
    • A Brilliant New Chilean Take on a Familiar Fairy Tale Story by C. E.
    • Reality or Madness….or both? An Expedition with Pirandello into the new Zoom Universe by C.E.
    • READING NEW PLAY BY REGINE FOLKMAN ROSSNES by Colin Ellwood
    • A Collaborative Complicity by Charlotte Keatley 
    • ​A Blind Poet and a Blind King Corralled in a Discovery of Chairs by Colin Ellwood (07/10/16)​​
    • ​An Atmosphere of Daring by Gwen MacKeith
    • ​Keeping Afloat by Siubhan Harrison
    • ​Between the Lines by Christopher Naylor 
    • ​Prospecting by Bill Nash 
    • ​Missing Voices by Jamie deCourcey (02/05/15)
    • The Propensity to be Enriching by Danny Horn (19/01/15)
    INDEX of contributors:
    • John Chancer
    • Jamie de Courcey
    • ​Colin Ellwood
    • ​Tom Freeman
    • Valerie Gogan
    • Siubhan Harrison
    • Danny Horn
    • ​Charlotte Keatley
    • Stephanie Königer
    • Gwen MacKeith
    • Caitlin McLeod
    • ​Bill Nash
    • Christopher Naylor
    • Alex Ramon
    • ​Stephanie Rutherford
    • ​Simon Stephens
    • Jack Tarlton
    • Oliver Yellop​
    TAKE ME BACK
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  • Home
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    • Previous projects >
      • Rehearsed Readings
      • INCUBATIONS