Output details

Last Train to Tomorrow - directed performance

As director, my aim was to generate a way of integrating fluid forms of stage drama - including narration, characterization and spectacle – with the ‘stable’ conventions of concert performance. Working from a score and minimal script, I created a theatrical world in which to animate the original score and ‘embody’ various sequences within it. Both the conception and the research sought to balance interplay between different languages of performance and varied modes of signification. The representational work of the adult actors inhabiting and moving through different dramatic situations needed to interact with the figurative movement of the orchestral composition and the powerful presence of the children’s choir that, in both a metaphorical and a literal sense, recalled the actual children featured in the story. The intention was to initiate in-depth experimentation with theatrical and musical forms in order to construct and test new modes of signification across generally diverse performance disciplines without compromising the sense of unity.

This output constitutes a way of engendering a new aesthetic for an original composition that combined theatrical and orchestral modes of presentation. By animating alternative approaches to the staging of a ‘hybridized’ art form, the results prompted educational, biographical and emotional involvement in a performance that serves as a creative ‘reflection’ on the experiences of those affected by the events depicted. 'People might go because they wanted to hear a concert’, observed one Kindertransport survivor, ‘but whilst they are there they are being educated'. Such a response testifies to the extent to which the combined modes of representation in the performance fostered alternative dramatic effects. This is evidenced by the responses of Kindertransport survivors interviewed in the accompanying DVD material.

The performance was staged on Sunday 17th June 2012 at the Bridgewater Hall. Together with the DVD recording, the accompanying BBC News item, gives some insight into the significance of this project.