The Tempest Project - What Is It?
Sudbury Dramatic Society (www.sudburydramatic.com) perform six productions each year in The Quay at Sudbury (www.quaysudbury.com), a small community based theatre that the society created in 1981 from a late 18th Century warehouse on the river Stour. We usually undertake one experimental production each year that aims to stretch ourselves and enliven the community, which includes areas of rural poverty as well as artistic richness.“Un Teatro Entre Todos” (www.unteatroentretodos.com ) is a Spanish theatre project to convert two traditional Alpujarran outdoor circular threshing floors into an outdoor performing space. The driving force is an English woman, Anna Kemp, married to a Spaniard, Paolo, who with their family in the village of Laroles, where the theatre has been created. She has worked at the Minack Theatre in Cornwall, so has experience of outdoor theatre.
2016 is the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death. One of his last plays, The Tempest is thought to have included Shakespeare’s own farewells. The Tempest was the first play to be performed at the Minack in 1932. Although Shakespeare’s sources for the play are unclear, studies (Hulme, 2002) have linked the story to Spanish and Spanish-Caribbean sources, making links between these two community-based theatrical spaces. We aim to strengthen these links.
In the summer of 2016 season SDS will take “The Tempest”, directed by Annie Eddington (actor, director and academic) and produced by Sara Knight (actor, director and academic), to “Un Teatro Entre Todos”, after a week’s run in July at the Quay. We will raise funds to ensure that the venture is cost-neutral, so that interested young actors can audition regardless of their financial circumstances. We intend to benefit both Sudbury and Laroles by creating a link between two community-based theatres, both located in areas of rural deprivation, both preserving local architectural and artistic heritage, and both with high artistic aspirations.
Costumes and props must be able to be carried as a part of the company’s luggage, so costume will be symbolic – our current thoughts are to use coloured silks which are woven locally in Sudbury to denote characters and to create mood, draped over a basic outfit, possibly breeches and shirts. These elements increase flexibility and portability, but are also elements that reflect the transitory setting of the play on the shore between land and sea, and the mysterious quality of the story with its magic, illusions and deceptions.
