As Mamet plays in libraries is a bit different to opera on the high street, we thought perhaps you might be interested to hear a bit more about our forthcoming production of Reunion and Dark Pony and why it’s taking place in libraries across South London.
Firstly, we aim to present one opera and one theatre production a year. Last year it was street opera Drifting Dragons and digital promenade theatre piece A Secret Life, which took the audience on a journey round the streets and ended up for a scene in the wonderful Mason’s Arms pub. Both of those projects were new pieces based on local people’s stories and inspired by the many local people across Merton and Wandsworth we spoke to about their memories.
This year we have left new stories to re-discover old ones and present them in unusual public places. You don’t often hear Mozart’s Cosi Fan Tutte in the pub or the supermarket do you? But you do with us! So we wanted this year’s theatre production to also be a classic in an unexpected place.
David Mamet may not have been around in 1790 but his work can be considered that of a contemporary classic. He is one of America’s leading playwrights with his most famous work being Oleanna, Glengarry Glen Ross and Boston Marriage. (More details on https://www.baselessfabric.co.uk/productions/reunion-dark-pony-by-david-mamet/). These two plays Reunion and Dark Pony are two of his earliest plays, first produced in the US in 1976 and 1977 respectively. They were first produced in the UK in 1981 and have rarely been performed here since.
So we are super excited to have an opportunity to share them with you. And classics in unusual public spaces got us thinking about what kind of public spaces we want to be presenting work in and the people we want to reach.
We love libraries. We love books and reading and stories. We love beautiful buildings both old and historical as well as new and modern. But we particularly love community spaces where anyone can hang out in a safe, quiet but not silent, and welcoming space. We love that in libraries you can find students studying for exams, a parent and child playing and reading together in the childrens’ area, friends sipping coffee and reading the paper in the café, the local homeless man keeping warm and dry out of the rain, elderly men playing chess every Wednesday afternoon, while someone learns how to use a computer or gets that much needed photocopying done…. This feels like a space we’d like to play in and they are people we’d like to meet.
As a site-specific company we don’t present plays in an actual theatre. But sometimes we do plays. So if you love libraries too, why not come and join us for a bit of storytelling, particularly if you often read stories more often in books than seeing as plays. We’d love to tell you a story…
Reunion & Dark Pony
By David Mamet
9th – 15th October 2017
In Libraries across Merton, Wandsworth, Lambeth & Southwark
