Work in Progress: Quarantine’s Richard Gregory on The Dyas Sisters

We speak to Quarantine theatre company's artistic director Richard Gregory about its ambitious new show, The Dyas Sisters

Feature by Jacky Hall | 02 Jul 2013

Theatre is often made through collaboration, improvisation or experimentation, but devised theatre is created with a focus on these techniques. At one end of the spectrum is a work like A Chorus Line, a high-kicking musical developed from workshops with Broadway dancers. At the other end, it is closer to performance art, stubbornly existing only within a specific place and time. This makes certain works thrilling and visceral, but also makes them difficult to explain.

The Dyas Sisters, a new work from Quarantine, is one such piece. The starting point is a book by Grace and Veronica Dyas, in which the Irish sisters of the title have attempted to record everything that has happened to them in their lives. Each show at Manchester's Contact theatre will feature five performers auditioning for the roles of Grace and Veronica: and although these performers, recruited locally, will have access to the book in advance, they won’t rehearse or prepare. What happens on stage will be determined during the performance, and could include singing, dancing or even ventriloquism.

Quarantine’s artistic director Richard Gregory originally met Grace Dyas when he was mentoring an artist’s residency in Ireland. Impressed by her work as a theatre practitioner, he stayed in contact with her for several years, with the aim of them eventually working together. With the addition of Grace’s elder sibling Veronica, also a theatre practitioner, that proposed work has developed into The Dyas Sisters.

The source material is ludicrously ambitious and, ultimately, offers a challenge impossible to fulfil. How could anyone record their life while struggling against the march of time, shifting memories and self-censorship? It’s an idea similar to the book Björk finds in the forest in the video for Bachelorette; or to 2008 film Synecdoche, New York, in which theatre director Caden Cotard (Philip Seymour Hoffman) attempts to stage his entire life in a warehouse. Is the task of asking someone to perform someone else’s life doomed to fail?

“Failure is very much part and parcel of the nature of this sort of thing... it’s always on the brink of falling apart,” Gregory says. “But it’s also a very human thing because of the material from Grace and Veronica and from the people coming in to audition. It’s a very particular kind of failure.”

And this is sort of the point: one person’s failure can simultaneously be the moment a different person thinks ‘wow, this theatre thing is amazing.’ This type of devised work isn't about a process leading to a polished, shiny final show. It is about the process. Following its initial run at Contact, The Dyas Sisters will also appear at an arts festival in Groningen and Belfast’s The MAC.

Quarantine have been devising brave and challenging work for over 14 years, and for the past eight have been based in Salford’s Islington Mill. Gregory believes Quarantine’s work is informed by the vibrancy of the area, saying “it’s a brilliant city to be based in. There’s such a huge variety of things happening, a spirit of creativity and people willing to try all sorts of things.”

Some of those things include Susan and Darren, a 2007 ‘event with dancing’ starring Darren Pritchard and his mum Susan, a cleaner, and 2008’s Old People, Children and Animals, which featured five over-60s, three teenagers, two four-year-olds and eight animals. Working with non-professional actors is a theme throughout Quarantine’s work, and Gregory believes this makes the company a ‘voice of Manchester’.

Another of the company’s successful projects is Graft, a knowledge exchange for a selection of artists, held over several months. Graft participants have included former Long Blondes frontwoman turned painter Kate Jackson and comedian-slash-baker Albert Smith. “It’s a really enriching experience, just to talk with other artist people who do something similar to what we do but also something different,” Gregory explains. “It’s a very stimulating environment to be in.’ Much like the immersive work Quarantine create.

Due to 'unexpected challenges', The Dyas Sisters' run at Contact, Manchester, has been cancelled, but there will be a free event at the theatre, 'A Reading Room' to share the book on 5 Jul from 8pm

Read the full statement here: http://contactmcr.com/whats-on/1185-quarantine-the-dyas-sisters/

http://www.qtine.com