Mothers & Daughters:
a Tamasha Scratch at Rich Mix
28 February 2014
Six artists bring women centre stage, followed by an Open Space discussion with the women
spearheading the movement for more female roles.
Guest Artist: Comedian Sindhu Vee talks about drawing inspiration from her mother.
FRAGMENTS by Chris Savage King
Actors: Ann Firbank & Suzan Sylvester
Directed by Bethan Dear
I wrote this piece to tackle generally held taboos and pieties about the Caring industries, elderly care and
disability. While these issues have appeared on the political map, the realities are far from benign and the
solutions far from straightforward. What happens when a former child has to look after a former parent? On
the axis of guilt, duty, obligation, and righteous resentment of fading powers and incapacity, who really holds
the power? Is dementia an illness looking for a cure, or the mind’s way of dealing with unacceptable realities?
About Chris Savage King: Working in the field of creative arts for over 20 years, Chris Savage King's work
includes her novel Do What You Want, nominated for the Orange Fiction prize, and What/So What? a winner
in the ICA Writing for Performance competition in 1996, and included in Urban Romances (2011). She has
worked as an arts critic, copywriter and editor, is a published poet, held 2 Writer in Residence posts in prisons,
and taught for City University, Birbeck and Goldsmiths Colleges. She currently performs widely as Diabola
Balsa and is working on a one woman show Viva Diaspora!
UNBROKEN by Tuyen Do
Performed by: Tuyen Do
Directed by Bethan Dear
When I saw the theme Mothers and Daughters I knew I had to write something in response. The theme is so
powerful and all encompassing that I was stuck as to how to fit what I wanted to say in such a short space of
time. When I saw Kate Tempest perform I knew the only form my piece could take was a poem. I wanted to
get across how love, and in this case, specifically the love between a mother and a daughter, can transcend
time, distance, pain and suffering. That it is somehow constant and eternal, even after times of trouble.
About Tuyen Do: Tuyen is an actor/writer. She is a graduate of the Royal Court’s studio group and is currently
doing a MA in Dramatic Writing at Drama Centre London with two plays in development (Summer Rolls with
Tamasha and BOY). Her short film Healthy screened internationally and has won honourable mention for Best
Short, and Best Supporting Actor at the Asians on Film Festival 2014. Her directing debut, short film Above the
Waist earned her a Best Director nomination. Acting stage credits include: Golden Child (New Diorama), The
Grammar of Love (Oval House); film credits include award winning short films Healthy, Cross Your
Fingers and My Dad the Communist.
LEVIATHAN MONOLOGUES by Shobu Kapoor
Actors: Shaheen Khan & Nyla Levy
Directed by Pia Furtado
Leviathan Monologues explores a mother-daughter relationship in the context of single parenthood. Single
parents, many of them women, are all too often entirely responsible for their children’s upbringing. I know
lots of women in this situation (myself included) and I want to celebrate them and their daughters while
pulling no punches on how challenging life can be for all concerned, with isolation, fear and joy all mixed up in
a pretty flammable cocktail. A Leviathan is ‘a thing that is very large, or powerful’ (OED). I think you’ll agree
that the mother-daughter relationship is a Leviathan indeed!
About Shobu Kapoor: Shobu has an MA in English Literature (Honours) from Bombay University. She
completed her first playwriting commission for Tara Arts in 2013, a stage adaptation of Moni Mohsin’s novel,
Tender Hooks. Shobu is also a poet and short story writer and has read her poems at iOpen and Chill Pill
events. Her short story The Clever Old Woman was performed at Omnibus in December 2013. She is a director
at Roman Candle Productions, a London based film and television company, where she is developing short and
feature film scripts. She is also an actress and single parent.
DEAR MAMA by Elena Procopiu
Performed by: Elena Procopiu
Directed by Bethan Dear
When the theme of Mothers and Daughters was proposed, I was compelled in a fit of motivated anxiety to
write something. The relationship can be a strange and complex one and I felt I had some stories to tell.
About Elena Procopiu: Elena is an Anglo-Romanian actress and comedian. She has been on The Bill and Blue
Peter and performed stand-up up and down the UK, across Europe, in New York, in London has supported
Harry Hill, and performed at The Comedy Store, Piccadilly Comedy Club and Downstairs At The Kings Head.
She has been voice-over artist in English, Romanian and French for Disney, a BAFTA award-winning animation
company and a foreign version of a Wallace and Gromit production. She has most recently presented a piece
on The One Show on BBC attempting to dispel myths about Romanians not all being awful.
TRUNK by Caroline Loncq
Actors: Ann Firbank, Kiran Sonia Sawar & Susan Sylvester
Directed by Pia Furtado
What do you do with the snippets of stories that run through the core of a family? That's the question that
started me thinking about Trunk, a play about memory, family and the folk history of war. The plot centres on
three generations of women who find a trunk in the attic filled with memories of a dead man: father,
grandfather and soldier, whose sap runs through all their veins. The situation that propels this extract, the
opening of the play, is highly autobiographical in that I helped my own mother move three years ago. We have
both just about recovered.
About Caroline Loncq: An actress who's appeared in theatres from Stratford East to Stratford on Avon,
Caroline has played Lysistrata, Margaret Hyman in Miller's Broken Glass and Nawal in Scorched at the Old Vic
Tunnels. In addition to acting, Caroline authored and photographed two books about London, has written
short films including Boom Boom Clap and London Feels (which she also directed) and made three successful
educational films for schools. She has just written her first play Betty, Petty & Me. Trunk is her second play, a
work very much in progress.
ABOUT THE DIRECTORS
Bethan Dear is Artistic director of theatre company Jackdaw. In 2013 she was invited to attend the NT Studio
Directors course. Productions include; Tell Tales (VAULT Festival), Harlesden High Street (Tara Theatre), Senses
(HighTide Festival), Sketchfest (Almeida Theatre), Hindle Wakes (Finborough Theatre), What Will Survive of Us
(National Theatre Inside-Out), Pandora’s Box (Barbican Curious Festival) and The Goodnight Bird (Finborough
Theatre). Assistant directing: The Masque of Anarchy for Sarah Frankcom (Manchester International Festival),
Before the Party for Matthew Dunster (Almeida Theatre), Festival of the Dead for theatre company Tangled
Feet and Resident Assistant Director at the Finborough Theatre (2010).
Pia Furtado directs work from new writing to musicals and opera. She is artistic director of combined arts
company The Theory of Everything. Opera Credits include: L’elisir d’amore (Opera Holland Park), Werther
(Scottish Opera), Susanna (Iford Arts), Cautionary Tales (libretto and direction, Opera North), Werther,
L’Histoire de Babar and Le Chouette Enhrumée (Les Azuriales), Coffee Cantata (Wellcome Trust/Early
Opera). Theatre and Musical Credits include: Say it with Flowers (dramaturg/director, Sherman Cymru), Dirty
Great Love Story (59E59 New York/Soho Theatre/Bristol Old Vic/Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds/Pleasance
Edinburgh. Fringe First Award) and Romania 21 (dramaturg/director, Teatrul Tineretului, Romania).
Open Space discussions with Mandy Fenton and Lucy Kerbel
Last year, the Guardian, Sphinx and Equity published an alarming statistic stating that for every two stage roles
written for men, only one is written for women. While the Western world purports to have achieved gender
equality, such a statistic reflects a deeply rooted perpetuation of whose voices are being heard, particularly on
such a powerful platform as the stage.
Mandy Fenton launched Equal Writes in response to current issues around gender parity existing on stage in
the UK and as part of the nationwide campaign addressing this situation. She was awarded The Writers’ Guild
Theatre Encouragement of New Writing Award 2013 for Equal Writes. Mandy trained and began working as an
actor after a career in TV production for BBC, Ch.4 and LWT. She trained at Uta Hagen’s HB Studio New York
and Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. Theatre includes: Shalom Baby (Theatre Royal Stratford East),
Wife After Death (UK No1 Tour), Autour D’un Banc (La Cave), Parallel Lives (Soho Theatre), Shout (Tristan Bates
Theatre). TV includes: Dream Team (Sky One), Goal (BBC Worldwide). www.equalwrites.co.uk.
Lucy Kerbel is the Director of Tonic Theatre and an award-winning theatre director. Having begun her career
as Resident Director at the National Theatre Studio and English Touring Theatre, Lucy went on to direct a
range of classics, new writing and productions for younger audiences. It was while directing around the UK
that Lucy became interested in the question of gender equality in theatre. She recognised that the industry
would need better support if it were to achieve greater balance in its workforces and repertoires and so in
2011, with the support of the National Theatre and Royal Opera House's Step Change scheme, Lucy founded
Tonic Theatre to go some way towards achieving this. www.tonictheatre.co.uk
Raffle
£1 : 1 ticket
£3 : 5 tickets
£5 : 10 tickets
Dine out in style at award-winning Bombay Café Dishoom with a voucher worth £50.
How about winning a hamper of glorious, organic food from the Albion Café? (See the goodies on display!)
Win a bottle of gracefully-aged single malt whiskey from Roast, worth £120.
Add the must-have collection of Tamasha’s playtexts to your library.
Or how about a mini bottle of Oudinot champagne?
WINNERS WILL BE ANNOUNCED TONIGHT!
Don’t have your ticket(s) yet? Grab someone from the Tamasha team before 9.30pm…
Please join us after the performances for drinks in the bar and meet the artists involved.
.
Tamasha online: www.tamasha.org.uk
Check out our online gallery: www.tamasha.org.uk/small-lives-global-ties-gallery
www.facebook.com/tamashatheatre
@tamashatheatre