music theatre
Currently I work both in London and on the Dingle Peninsula, on the west coast of Ireland,
where, in 2007, a local theatre company commissioned a site-specific piece in the Irish language. Premiered
as part of the May festival in Dingle, it’s led to an idea for a collaboration on a new music theatre
piece combining traditional Irish song, music, and poetry.
My first music theatre work was for The Garden Venture at the Royal Opera House, Covent
Garden. It was an exploration of two things - the physical requirements/possibilities of live performance;
and the dramatic possibilities/pitfalls of combining music, words and sung voice.
Combining music, words and live dramatic presentation can produce layered, structurally-driven
work with unique possibilities for surprise and for simultaneous communication on different levels, conscious
and unconscious, intellectual and emotional.
But get it wrong and you get unfocused story-telling, inaudible word-setting, self-conscious
lyricism, and minimal intellectual content.
I believe that what’s needed is effective communication between writer and composer,
or –as in the case of my upcoming piece - writer and musician. You don’t need to duplicate
each other’s skills. You do need to understand each other’s intentions. You also need awareness
of the technical complexities you’re setting up for singers, and the practicalities of production.
Ultimately, music theatre reaches an audience through heightened experience, which makes
it one of the most potentially powerful of art forms.
I love its blending of disciplines and skills.
|