Plays
SWING VLOG 1
I've just started devlopment with actors on my new play SWING. Here is a vlog summary of yesterdays work. I am working with actors Mat Fraser, Lisa Hammond, Robin Browne, Nuala Walsh, Nick Chambers and Tina Barnes, designer Nicolai Hart-Hansen and filmmaker Cristina Escoda. I'm using this week as an opportunity to really hone the text, cut out unecessary material etc.
I'm always nervous when I start a new project with actors, doubly so when it is my writing but I was quite terrified during the build up to this one. It is dark, sexually explicit material and often I was quite hesitant during my writing process. Early drafts shocked me as I was searching for the meaning of the work. Often the action was missing character, it was brutal because of its lack of meaning and/or purpose whereas the brutality needed to be existentially expressive. What I enjoyed yesterday, in the rehearsal room was the sense that I had found my way through.
Over the next few days I shall be publishing a series of VLOGS which will document the working process and if you are around in Battersea, London, next week please come along to a reading/performance.
Here is the blurb for the show.
Swing is an explicit new work by Xavier Leret. It examines a series of relationships grappling with the effects of our off and online addictions, fantasies and body image. A dysfunctional, shocking and sometimes tragic look at this post internet world of ours. SWING also marks the first collaboration between KAOS Theatre and disabled actor and activist Mat Fraser.
Swing follows a series of relationships. Harry, a man is his late fifties, sleeps with a young sex worker. Harry’s wife, Janet, is not what she was, her hip has gone and with it her self esteem. In an effort to re-light her sense of self worth Harry buys her some lingerie – it ‘s a mistake. Janet has an online sexual relationship with Mark. Mark has developed a serious addiction to cyber sex and porn. In a brutal scene Ruth his wife confronts him with it. In an effort to re-kindle her own wavering need for sex and her need for revenge Ruth visits sex worker John …
Performances take place FEB 27, 28, March 1 at BAC 8.30pm.
And here is todays VLOG. The video has been shot and edited by Cristina Escoda.
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License.