Mike Pearson and Mike Brookes
When: 15th – 17th February 2018, 8pm
Where: Pafiliwn Bont, Pontrhydfendigaid, Ceredigion, Wales
£: Tickets cost £10, £7.50 for concessions and £5 for the preview
What is it?
National Theatre Wales’ 2018 season will kick-off this February with the first part of The Storm Cycle; an extraordinary, three-year collaboration with theatre-makers Mike Pearson and Mike Brookes, who have created some of National Theatre Wales’ most critically-acclaimed work to date.
Storm 1: Nothing Remains The Same will be a poetic, cinematic reimagining of the first two books of Roman author Ovid’s Metamorphoses; with a new text narrated by Aimee-Ffion Edwards (Detectorists, Peaky Blinders, Jerusalem) and Mike Pearson.
In his epic narrative, completed just before his exile in 8AD, Ovid links together ‘into one artistically harmonious whole, all the stories of classical mythology’. Ovid tells of extraordinary and miraculous changes and transformations, in the nature of people and of things.
In a theatrically thrilling combination of word, sound and unexpected occurrences, Nothing Remains The Same takes up two of Ovid’s early stories.
In the first part, a disordered universe is brought into harmony, and then put at risk through the faults, frailties and violent acts of successive races of humanity. In the second, the foolhardy Phaëthon insists on driving his father Phoebus’ fiery chariot – the sun – to prove he’s his divine son. But his reckless exploits lead to tragedy…
National Theatre Wales’ The Storm Cycle will include six productions conceived, designed and directed by Pearson and Brookes. These six multimedia works will be performed at different locations across Wales, in a variety of scales and sizes, and will explore two key themes; truth and testimony. They will culminate with the creation of a major, new, large-scale production for NTW’s 10th anniversary programme in 2020.
Drawing on dramatic, literary, mythological, cinematic and artistic sources; historical and contemporary, local and international, fictional and documentary, The Storm Cycle will include original texts, specially created soundtracks, innovative scenic designs and novel physical activities.
The second part of The Storm Cycle – Storm 2: Things Come Apart – will be a vivid evocation of the Cardiff riots of June 1919, as reported in the local press. It will be performed at the Tabernacl Church in Cardiff city centre, from 21st to 24th March 2018.
More info: www.nationaltheatrewales.org/storm1