Cigarettes & Chocolate and Other Short Plays, The Studio, York Theatre Royal, February 11 to 20 (From York Press)

Cigarettes & Chocolate and Other Short Plays, The Studio, York Theatre Royal, February 11 to 20

11:44am Friday 5th February 2010

• Print
• Email
• Share
• Comments(0)

CIGARETTES & Chocolate was originally a state-of-the-nation play on the radio; Hang Up was a dance duet that brought to life the recorded phone conversation of young lovers; and Days Like These was written as a television vignette for Comic Relief.

All three works by the late Anthony Minghella are being re-interpreted for the Studio stage at York Theatre Royal by the Old Bomb Theatre Company in a production co-directed by Paul Osborne and Cecily Boys that opens on Thursday (February 11). Paul was keen to do a celebration of Minghella’s work from the moment that he heard of the death of the writer, director and film-maker in 2008.

“I felt so affected by his death. Even though I hadn’t met him, the things he’d written resonated with me, so I did feel like I knew him from his writing,” he says. Cigarettes & Chocolate, a radio play about a group of thirty-somethings being shaken to the core by the self-imposed silence of their friend Gemma, was his instant first choice.

“I had a copy of Cigarettes & Chocolate at home from when I had to learn a piece for an audition for the BBC Radio Company,” he recalls. “After Old Bomb did On The Shore Of The Wide World, a hectic play with 40 scenes in it, I just wanted to do a play with a lot more stillness to it; something that was stretched out and not so fast paced but gave you time to think about it – and Cigarettes & Chocolate is that play.”

It will form the 70-minute first half, to be followed by two 15-minute Minghella works, the first being Hang Up, performed by two dancers from York St John University, who mirror the phone conversation of lovers, played out live by actors J Raphael Richards and Bryony Byrne.

The show ends with Margaret Hillier’s performance of Days Like These: Minghella’s account of an old lady, seemingly marooned at home, reflecting on the highs and lows of a life lived to the full. “It wouldn’t feel right to do them in any other order, as it needs to finish with Margaret’s piece” says Paul.

“In Days Like These, the old woman is looking back on life not just in a poignant way; it’s also a comforting piece about getting old and coming to terms with that, so it balances sentimentality with the urgent need to communicate.” Old Bomb’s central challenge is to present pieces written for the radio, the dance floor and the TV as theatrical works.

“We will have acting in combination with music [Bach’s St Matthew Passion], with dance and with silence, which I’ve never really dwelt on before – and as an actor, all of those things can give energy to your work, like a launch pad,” says Paul.

“It will also be interesting for people to see dancers so close up in The Studio, as normally dance involves building up a picture from a distance.” Cast member Hannah Dee, a professional actress and playwright who has left London to re-settle in York, is enjoying the chance to compare and contrast the three works, while playing the damaged, cigarette-smoking Lorna in Cigarettes & Chocolate.

“It’s rare to see three plays by one writer in one night and how they inform each other: you can see Minghella’s obsessions and it’s fascinating, for me as a writer, to see the themes that recur in his writing,” says Hannah, who teaches on the play-writing MA course at the University of York and undertook playwriting training at the Royal Court while in London.

Analysing the role of silence in Cigarettes & Chocolate, she says: “The characters all have differing reactions to the enforced silence. Lorna, for example, is plunged into haunting dark corners that she doesn’t want to face, and she’s suddenly very revealing about the places she’s not comfortable with.” Paul concurs. “When someone else is silent, it forces you to speak and you can end up saying too much, and I mean that in both ways: talking too much and revealing too much, saying things you would never normally reveal,” he says.

“It’s a play with lots to say about how we live and how we relate to each other, examining the kindness in people, the anger, the frustration, and the wry humour of human behaviour, where people are capable of cracking jokes and deflating themselves, even in the most difficult situations.” Humour is vital to Minghella’s writing in Cigarettes & Chocolates, suggests Hannah.

“The play is about the futility of human existence and if there wasn’t the humour there, Minghella would be in danger of being worthy and beating people over the head with an over-sized hammer!”

Old Bomb Theatre Company presents Cigarettes & Chocolate and Other Short Plays in The Studio, York Theatre Royal, from February 11 to 20, 7.45pm plus 2pm matinee on February 13. Box office: 01904 623568 or www.yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.

• Print
• Email
• Share
• Comments(0)