Before The Crick Crack Club – legendary contemporary storytellers Ben Haggarty, Hugh Lupton, and Sally Pomme Clayton, and extraordinary musician Sheema Mukherjee – bring their spellbinding take on lesser-known Grimm’s tales to the Barnfield Theatre this November, our Student Ambassadors Ashley Khoo and Holly Lobban caught up with Hugh Lupton on behalf of the company.
What was the inspiration for the image on the poster? How does it relate to the show’s themes?
The image on the poster suggests a dark take on a fairy tale world… the main stories we’ll be telling include themes of blindness and sight, incarceration and (in one case) incest… so the image needed to make clear the world of the tales is menacing… but also magical.
What interested you about the Grimm’s stories to develop a production based on them?
We had been telling fairy tales for many years when we received a commission to put together a performance for a festival exploring German Romanticism (at the South Bank). This piece was our contribution. We wanted to look at the structure of the tales… the way they descend to a very dark place, and then return to the light (often ending with a wedding). We also wanted to tell some of the more obscure tales from the Grimm’s collection.
Are there any other main inspirations for the stories or the way they will be told?
Everything we tell in this performance is in Grimm… but over the years we’ve told stories from many cultures… so we have a deep knowledge of the form of traditional tales… and in this piece we sort of deconstruct the form and examine it… in a playful way.
Why share ‘fairy tales for grownups’? What do you hope the audience takes from the play?
Fairy tales were never originally the province of childhood… they were told to all ages… they were the popular (oral) literature of the pre-literate world. Some of them are extremely ancient in origin. Their themes (even though they’re enclosed in a ‘Once Upon a Time’ world) explore what it means to be human… with all the difficult stuff that being human entails.
The stories are also rattling tales, enchanting, funny, & frightening. Audiences are taken on a journey… hopefully a transformative journey.
Did audience feedback during rehearsals or previews shape any aspects of the production?
We’re always reading and listening to audience response and making subtle adjustments to the show.
Were there any themes or messages you wanted to highlight that felt especially relevant today?
The performance is full of images that have contemporary resonances (sometimes shockingly so)… but the main theme is of the healing power of story… of the telling of our story… and the way the act of telling can lead us out of the shadows.
Are there any unique or surprising elements in this production that audiences might not expect?
It’s full of wonderful music! It’s not acted… it’s told… the pictures are in the heads of the audience… and those inner pictures are always the most vivid.
Catch The Three Snake Leaves at the Barnfield Theatre on Fri 22 Nov to experience the magic for yourself.
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