This was the eighth annual A-Level Theatre Festival, a celebration of the work of the A-Level Drama students but also an important performance unit assessed by a Visiting Examiner.
Over the two weeks of the Festival thirteen Year 13 A2 students directed, designed and performed three adaptations of classic plays and thirty two Year 12 students performed four full plays.
Eye for Eye was an adaptation of Claire Dowie’s hard hitting play about childhood memories and invisible friends Adult Child/Dead Child. This was beautifully and poignantly directed by Emma in a tightly choreographed piece centred on three large building blocks. It was a truly powerful and inventive piece and with some wonderful and moving performances by Karima, Sitheag and Emma.
Stranger than Strange was a very exciting adaptation of Equus, a disturbing play about a boy who blinds six horses. It was a truly powerful and inventive piece created by the student director Olive. There were some truly wonderful and moving performances by the actors Paolo, Will and Cam who vocally and visually shaped a very sophisticated piece of theatre.
The Year 13 evening was brought to a close by Martha’s Wanna Go? an adaptation of Eve Lewis’s play Ficky Stingers - a direct but stylised text about rape. This was a totally engaging piece really well performed by Kirsten in the central role as the victim and supported by Emma and Nina in a variety of naturalistic and stylised roles such as the friends of the victim and the perpetrators of the crime. It was a brave and difficult text to take on but it was sensitively and powerfully performed.
The Year 12 AS students performed four plays slightly edited and shortened to fit the rubric of the exam.
Mrs Parker directed a very witty adaptation of Jane Austen’s Emma. It was very fast-paced but clear telling of the story, beautifully staged and costumed, with Gabby in the central role as Emma and Kiki as Mr Knightly who were both well supported by a well used ensemble of Laura, Sophie, Diana, Maddy, Andrew, a wonderful picture frame and a very funny Jake who played a plethora of roles from the old to the young.
Miss Stockley directed a visually beautiful and very funny version of the Chinese mythical story Monkey (made famous by the animated TV programme). The ensemble played a huge range of parts as well as using physical theatre and puppetry to create monster fish, dragons, clouds, trees, mountains and rivers. The central role of Monkey was nimbly played by Craig but the story was populated by a huge range of funny and beautifully drawn characters by Guy, Jonathon, Imogen. Flora, Johanna, Hayley and Katharina in costumes designed and created by Shannon.
Mr Parker directed the dark and sensual telling of the Angela Carter fairy story The Bloody Chamber based on the story of Bluebeard. This piece really caught the idea of the gothic horror story through its design and beautiful staging which surrounded the acting space with huge white drapes. There was a timeless feel to the performance and a real sense of menace delivered by Jack as the marquis and a sensual innocence by Lucy as the girl. The story was skilfully told, peopled and supported by Emily, Camilla, Annabelle and Pim.
Mr Williams directed a new play form the American Theatre Project called Columbinus. This is a play sparked by the April 1999 massacre at Columbine High School in Littleton, USA. The Columbine High School massacre occurred on Tuesday, April 20, 1999 when two students entered the school and embarked on a massacre, killing 12 students and a teacher, as well as wounding 23 others, before committing suicide. This performance was a meeting of fact and fiction. The first half of the play journeyed through a proverbial high school day and showed us the types of students that populate a typical school in America.
The second half examined the two actual shooters with a fictionalisation of the days before the shootings. Alex and Peter played the shooters and delivered a detailed depth and understanding of why they did what they did but the strength of the piece was the tightly choreographed staging and interaction between the ensemble of Peter, Alex, Hannah, Dan, Andy and Bronnie. This was truly disturbing piece of theatre sensitively and powerfully performed which brought a wonderful response from the audience. It was a very special night of theatre.
