Peter Pap

I am back at my family home for the Christmas break.
Back to Newcastle.
Geordie Land.
The Toon.
Where even in the depths of winter, when earth stands hard as iron and water like a stone... You can still see girls walking home after a night out with no coat and no shoes.

I feel like I have stepped out of my MA bubble.. "Oh yes, there is life outside Central".

Since getting back to Newcastle I had completely neglected my studies, research and practice. I had become wrapped up in the Christmas world of food, drink, family and festivities. Yuck. I suppose it's good to have a break but I do find it 'oh so easy' to completely forget that I have work due in. Shit.

As a child my parents always used to take me to see the Northern Stage's Christmas productions. They were a far cry from the glittery soap-star pantos that spring up all over the place at Christmas. Northern Stage always seemed to put a really different twist on Children's classics. Their productions had a dark edge to them, a bit of black comedy thrown in and really imaginative sets and costumes. Performances to delight children and adults. I remember seeing performances such as 'The Snow Queen' and 'Grim Tales' as a child and being completely immersed in the world created in front of me on stage. I suppose Northern Stage (Formally known as The Playhouse) really inspired me at a young age to want to pursue a career in theatre.

So as much as I hate to admit it I was full of a disgusting festive delight when my Mum surprised me and my sister with a trip to the Northern Stage's Christmas eve matinee production of Peter Pan. I was excited to jump back into eight year old Lizzie (a place where I like to be) and run away to Never-land. I had complete faith that N Stage would take me there. However I was bitterly disappointed.

The set was brilliant, with audience facing audience and a long raised stage in the middle. The simple furniture of the Darling's bedroom was manipulated to form every other scene in the script, which gave the whole piece a feeling of make believe and child's play, which worked very well. Yet the piece lacked feeling.. I went away feeling nothing, nothing at all. Their was no emotion, feeling and N Stage's usual 'edge'. I felt like there was too much emphasis on the movement and choreography, which was done perfectly by Ballet LORENT's Liv Lorent and no thought into the real underlying emotions of J M Barrie's writing. When we saw Mary Darling alone in the empty children's bedroom I saw no real feeling of loss, worry... a mother beside herself with grief over her missing children. In fact the emotion was down played and light hearted as if she wasn't really that bothered at all. The world we live in now is full of missing children, child abuse and pedophilia. I am not saying that the children of Newcastle should be directly confronted with these issues but there is not one mother in the audience who wouldn't have been emotionally attached to Mary's character if played with real emotion and dark undertones. When Peter comes back to the bedroom years later and expects the heavily pregnant Wendy to run away with him once more... Where was the genuine excitement to see Peter? Where was the fleeting feeling of "If only.. But I am no longer a child"? In fact when Peter ends the first act by accepting death Wendy might as well have shrugged her shoulders and said "Oh well, never mind". Not one of the actors had any spark, any life. The piece was flat. Dead. Empty.

I wanted to give the actors some vocal coaching and some energy. I wanted the audience to be involved... I wanted to see the children of the audience really believe they were in Never-land. There could have easily been a live local band on stage to create atmosphere and to entertain the audience through the dreadfully slow scene changes. Where was the Geordie charm of N stage? Where was the dark edge? What set this performance aside from the usual Christmas tat? Nothing. It could have been everything.. but it was nothing.

After the show when my Mum's friend said to me "I'm sorry to interrupt love, but I really have to go now... So much to do before tomorrow... and your Mum still needs you to go buy some sprouts" I realised that I had been performing a live review of my theatrical disappointments for over an hour. When I do this I usually always feel like a bit of a cockhead... But this time I didn't care... Maybe it was the five festive glasses of wine I had just drank... I don't know... But as I walked through Newcastle city centre to find some last minute sprouts I dramatically looked up into the night sky and promised to the Christmas stars above that if I didn't do anything else worthwhile with my life I would always try to make good theatre.

Christmas day is over and sods law... I have the flu. Yet at least now I am back to 'Thinking Theatre'. Right, now about that Visual essay...