Chrysalis Festival at the Traverse: Preview
Here's The Skinny run down of what to expect from the Traverse's inaugural Chrysalis festival.
This November, the Traverse Theatre plays host to the inaugural Chrysalis festival, which showcases and celebrates young theatre companies and the work they produce from Scotland and beyond. With the Scottish theatre scene suddenly lacking The Arches and therefore Arches Live, the performance spaces and festivals in Scotland that offer a way in to young and emerging artists seem painfully reduced.
Enter Chrysalis festival, which is not only giving these emerging artists the chance to perform in a space as great and as renowned as the Traverse but is bringing them together with their peers and their audiences to open up discussion about what young performers can bring to theatre and what theatre can bring to them.
Invited company Junction 25, usually based in Glasgow's Tramway theatre are bringing their already acclaimed piece of work I'd Rather Humble Than Hero. Formed In 2005, the group uses weekly workshops to create their own work, often with very personal themes and stories; using their own names, hopes and worries to create work that looks at the nature of what it is to be young, among many other themes. I'd Rather Humble takes all of this and more into a piece devised entirely by the young performers themselves.
Also invited are the young company from Manchester's Contact Theatre. They bring Under The Covers, developed earlier this year with help from artists including Amy and Rosanna Cade. The piece looks at young people's attitudes to sex, questioning the myths and taboos that surround it. Initially, Under the Covers was performed as part of Manchester's Sick! Festival, confronting the physical, mental and social challenges of life and death.
"Young artists are out there if you know where to look"
Also travelling to Scotland from the Northwest are 20 Stories High, the Liverpool-based company who believe "everybody has a story to tell and their own way of telling it." Their Young Actors Company are embarking on a mini-tour, taking Headz around the UK, which includes an appearance at Chrysalis. The show is a selection of funny and gritty monologues which the company themselves advertise as 'Spike Milligan meets Alan Bennett' – certainly an intriguing combination.
Finally, the Citizens Theatre Young Company are bringing Southside Stories, inspired by Douglas Maxwell's Fever Dream: Southside. A cast of 18 draw on interviews with inhabitants of Glasgow's Govanhill. The production also utilises new music created and performed by the Young Company band. It's a great combination, with the Citz doing great cultural and community work for The Gorbals, and now reaching out to another vibrant and diverse area of Glasgow on the cultural upswing.
These four performances may not, when it comes down to it, have much in common except the age range of their performers, but to put them side-by-side showcases that these young companies are firmly on the pulse of society. From sex to the cultural landscape, they question issues and intrigues faced by society with new, fresh perspectives.
The companies all perform work to a professional standard, tackling big themes that plague artists twice their age, proving that they too can be seen on a level playing field with more experienced contemporaries. Each of these shows has been performed before, and each of these companies continues to make new work, showing that young artists are already out there if you know where to look. If YTAS's goal with this festival is to open new audiences to the work of young companies, and in turn to open these young companies to new audiences, it's hard to see how these four shows could fail to impress, to spark discussion, or simply to entertain.
Chrysalis Festival, Traverse Theatre, 6-7 Nov, times vary.