Sounding Out in the HEART Café

Word play at its very best: Sally Bavage writes:

“I didn’t know what to expect – what a wacky, amazing, fantastic time!”  No, not me, but a member of the packed audience at the ‘experimental writing and sound works’ at the Heart Café on Thursday evening.  Wednesday evening (see blog entry) saw us considering experimental languages created by authors and Thursday saw a natural parallel in the experimental music created by words. 

Headingley LitFest was delighted to welcome, for the first time, the LeedsMet ensemble of ten students and two staff, along with their able technical support, as they performed for us just before most of them left for an international drama performance event in Croatia at 4am on Friday.  Dedication to LitFest indeed!  We wished them ‘Bog’ or 'Bok' (hello in Croatian – but see the blog from the experimental languages event on Wednesday for what Anthony Burgess made of it!) and we wished them ‘sretno’ (good luck).  The luck was ours.

The first half was a series of pieces, voices only, playing on the way we normally interpret speech and voice patterns and challenging us to listen more carefully to the sounds we hear.  A simple introduction but spoken like early computer-speak in monotonous tones was rather disturbing until your ear adjusted to the rhythm.  Would an experimental author describe it as ‘droidian’?  A two-handed piece started in what sounded like a foreign language – Croatian?  Or was it voice exercises?  Or is it the sounds a young child makes as they struggle to speak.  Or bird calls in spring?  A duet between creatures unknown? Well, it’s in the ear of the listener.  Changes in tone, rhythm, sound keep you changing your mind. Just how much of what we hear every day fits in with expectations and experience?  Is that what a baby hears before they have made the links between sound and meaning?

Other pieces conveyed simple but strong lyrics, rap rhythms, the whispered poetry of pleasure and a table used to emulate percussion – drums, marching feet, slamming doors.  Sometimes better to listen than to look so you interpret with your ears. We are so used to the cadences of everyday speech where we know what to expect.  This presentation is a delightful challenge to expectations.

After the interval we were treated to more music made by words and sounds.  A few words repeated become what - a mantra? a new language? – and the many changes in repetition and tone, discordant to flowing by turns, lead the audience to create the familiar whoops and hollers of true appreciation for the technical difficulty and skill involved. But the whoops too are sounds that make a language we understand!

Unaccompanied song, ensemble pieces and short poetry pieces culminate in a tour-de-force finale by Teresa Brayshaw, the performance leader.  Four pages from the story Not I by Samuel Beckett, learned by heart, are delivered at breakneck speed. They pull the heartstrings and puzzle by turns as the fragmented phrases and commentary unfold.  The elderly woman telling Becket’s story is seventy and mute: the very antithesis of our performers who have used their voices to such entertaining effect.  We have been challenged to rethink how we interpret what we hear and what meaning we make of the noises that we turn into sound into language.  Whoops and hollers indeed!

Pieces were performed by Steve Atkinson, Hannah Butterfield, Corina Cristea, Emma Fawcus, Lisa Fallon, Joely Fielding, Louise Hill, Rochnee Mehta, Tom Quinn, Adam Sas-Skowronski, Jess Sweet and Noel Witts, led by Teresa Brayshaw.  Technical support was provided by Matt Sykes Hooban, Mark Flisher and Debbie Newton.  

Experimental Languages - Elvish and Newspeak

Richard Wilcocks writes:

Perhaps some scholars are still attempting to discover the divine language, the ultimate language. It is difficult nowadays to snatch new-borns from their mothers and lock them up in dungeons with mute nurses to find which language they will develop, or to muster much credibility for a new project to recreate the language of the angels in the apocryphal Book of Enoch, but not that difficult to write a thesis or give a lecture on James Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake, which has been pored over by great linguists, extensively annotated, shortened and been the subject of innumerable lengthy articles in slim journals. It still sells steadily. Not bad for a work of comic fiction published just before the War.

Watch this YouTube clip of Joyce reading (in 1929) the Anna Livia Plurabelle section. All of his work should be read out loud!

A Shorter Finnegan’s Wake, edited by Anthony Burgess and published in 1966, sold more than the original though. More people had time for that. Dr Richard Brown began with Burgess in Headingley Library yesterday evening. He arrived with student Julia Tanner, who read an extract from A Clockwork Orange beautifully. In fact she went on to read from Orwell, Tolkien and Joyce equally impressively. Burgess’s use of transliterated Russian words was explored (Bog for God, moloko for milk) and his admiration for Joyce was mentioned. Dr Brown pointed out that Russian was a fresh and fashionable language for many in the fifties and sixties. The story of the disaffected, ultra-violent Alex and his murderous droogs, fictional predecessors of the Baader-Meinhof terrorist group perhaps, sold well and was made into a film which was banned. It brought to my mind Ross Raisin’s God’s Own Country (meet the author on Saturday afternoon) in which the disaffected Sam uses words which are taken from Yorkshire dialect, some of them made-up.

Orwell’s Newspeak from Nineteen Eighty-Four was scrutinised next. Predictably (this is a literature festival after all) we did not see the beauty of this ultimate language. I thought of North Korea’s version, the special trick there being to insert the name of the dear leader (Kim Jong-Il or a member of his dynasty) into every other sentence, but someone else pointed out that Newspeak was often used by our own politicians. Those present apparently preferred an elaborate, extensive lexicon.  Wordsworth’s views on poetic language were not mentioned. No time. Charles Kay  Ogden was mentioned though. He was the designer of ‘Basic English’ (BASIC = British American Scientific International Commercial) in which complex thoughts could be conveyed using just 850 words.

Then it was Tolkien and Elvish. On a handout, we saw the great man in a group photo taken in 1921 – members of the University of Leeds School of English standing and sitting on chairs, the women in white blouses and ankle-length skirts, hands clasped on knees. It was difficult to spot a blurred Tolkien. We looked at a photograph of one of the houses in which he had a flat (in Darnley Road) and thought about him travelling down the Otley Road every day to the university, an academic philologist on the tram, ninety years ago, with Sir Gawain and the Green Knight on his mind. A blue plaque is needed.

Elvish, Dr Brown made clear, is a far more scholarly linguistic experiment, not really intended to be a speakable language outside the community of the readership. It contains vocabulary from Old and Middle English, and from Welsh and Finnish. The fact that the language has a definite script adds depth. The diacritic marks on the script indicate the vowels: influences from Arabic calligraphy as well. The language has been extended by various Tolkien societies, so that it is now speakable, and interest in it has burgeoned since the success of Peter Jackson’s film version of Lord of the Rings. I am waiting for the simplified version before I learn it.

We finished with Joyce, who never lived in Headingley, as far as we know... and whose only reference to Leeds was punning (as different as York from Leeds/as different as chalk from cheese) and whose Ulysses will be unsolemnly read on Sunday in Muir Court. Bring your own copy. Julia Tanner proved that she can read Esperanto as well as Joycean, another cause for our admiration:

Gothgorod father godown followay tomollow the lucky load to Lublin for make his thoroughbass grossman’s bigness. Take that two piece big slap slap bold honty bottomsside pap pap pappa.

-       Li ne dormis?

-       S! Malbone dormas.

-       Kia li krias nikte?

-       Parolas infanetes. S!

Sonly all in your imagination, dim.

Dr Brown talked about Joyce’s Italian-speaking household in Trieste (Trst) between the wars, Italian being (only just) the dominant language at the time in the city, closely followed by Slovene. He nearly became an Italian author. He certainly thought that it was possible to translate (recreate) some passages of Finnegan’s Wake into Italian.

We were also shown an extract from Jacques Derrida’s famous Two Words for Joyce.

We could have continued for another hour, but it was not possible. No time. This academic contribution to the LitFest was most welcome. We appear to be establishing a tradition here. Let’s hope Dr Richard Brown returns in 2013, if not before.

Dr Richard Brown with English Department student Julia Tanner:

Not the Booker Winner - Michael Stewart, author of King Crow

Alison Millar writes:

When publisher Kevin Duffy was asked how he decides what to publish he replied, “I pick a good story” and if King Crow by Michael Stewart is anything to go by he is an excellent judge of a good story.

Michael spoke about his debut novel, which is a mixture of bird book, thriller and romance. He read extracts from different sections and talked about what inspired him to write it. The book has received a number of accolades including winning the ‘Not the Booker prize’ from The Guardian as well as being the only new novelist nominated by one of the authors on the World Book Night Giveaway books. It is also described by novelist David Peace as "brilliant".

The audience enjoyed interacting with Michael and there was a lively Q and A session after the talk. He gave us a teasing description of his next book, which will be published next year, and shared with us the news (received by text while he was on the way to Leeds) that he had just been commissioned by the BBC to write another play for Radio 4. 

Kevin Duffy from Bluemoose Books, an independent publisher based in Hebden Bridge also answered questions on the publishing business and why he re-mortgaged his house to pursue the business. He gave a very interesting insight to the big publishing houses and also the big literary awards.

The event was very enjoyable and both Michael and Kevin spoke passionately about books and writing. I wish them further success with King Crow, it certainly deserves it.

The Lingo of Food at the Heart Centre

June Diamond writes:

This joint event between two creative-writing  groups, both tutored by poet Becky Cherriman, marks the third year of collaboration between the Osmondthorpe Resource  Centre and the WEA.

And it was quite an event. Around me the audience agreed that this was a deeply moving celebration of creativity and cooperation. As Carl put it, getting off to a rousing start, it was, “a chance to try”. We shared Carl’s dream, to live by the sea and eat fish and chips, with freedom and with choice. What more could anyone want?

Siobhan entertained us with an account of the food she was given as a child when she was poorly - butterscotch Angel Delight - and Suzanne evoked real suffering, and the nectar of the first food taken after a blinding migraine. Their group piece on starvation was a searing critique  of the modern world.

In the second group David Newton entertained us with a clever piece on the ironies of food and  the rules set down by religious groups. Fabian  moved us with the story of how he had got to be here, and the deliciousness of green bananas, and Michael gave us a great account of a meal in Dubai that was intensely memorable in many ways, including economically. Jane described  graphically to us a  stomach-curdling meal in Hell. 

Howard took a different line with a poem entitled Soul Food. If music is the food of the soul, then happiness for Cliff Richard is performing to a room full of look-alikes.  Again, the group talked about starvation with compassion and empathy.

In the next group Adrian read Jenny Jones’ very funny piece on the aspiration towards vegetarianism.....if it weren’t for the temptation of bacon butties, sausage sarnies and corn beef hash. Robert gave us a lovely description of eating fish and chips with his brother, and Richard and Elaine eulogised chips together. Julie F led us to imagine the bliss of ice-cream at any time of the day. 

A couple of clever poems in this group reminded us that food has feelings too. Linda represented the cappuccino as a gorgeous Italian lady (arch-enemy, tea). In Metamorphosis Adrian cleverly drew us into the experience of the pear becoming pudding, and the pleasure and pain of transformation. This session ended with an ode to greed by Richard and Linda.

Chris reminded us of the transformation wrought on ordinary food stuff as it becomes stew. Howard gave a clever wordplay on seasonal food. Vivian reminded us, unforgettably, that food does not come from supermarkets, and that every bit of it is valued in the rural economy, using time-honoured skills. Chris and Howard produced a graphic metaphor in  Full Sky.

The final group began with a deeply-felt reflection on starvation. Julie B reminded us vividly of the deliciousness of pie. David Maccoby  related a memory of a meal – all wanted, all delicious, and reminded us of where it goes. Angela gave the amateur cook’s point of view with an ode  to Delia, and a cry of anguish when somehow it never comes out like it does in book or on telly.

The presentation ended with a final piece by Jane and with fervent thanks, and of course applause.

Il Postino at Cottage Road Cinema

Richard Wilcocks writes:

For me, this charming, funny and touching study of the effect of the exiled Pablo Neruda on a poor, near-illiterate island where fishermen vote communist and also dress up to take part in a procession with a statue of Our Lady of Sorrows is about naivety and fundamentalism as well as about the use of metaphors and the wooing of women with poetry.

The story (based on a novel) is strongly rooted in facts: the great poet was forced to get out of Chile in 1948 after the Communist Party was made illegal there and tried to settle in a number of places in Europe before he landed (in this film that is) on the small island in the south of Italy in 1952. That part of Italy was much poorer than the north of the country, and still is. He wrote political manifestos and historical epics as well as beautiful, erotic love poems and was a recipient of the International Stalin Prize for Strengthening Peace Among Peoples, which puts him in the company of Pablo Picasso and Paul Robeson. He was not only a fervent admirer of Lenin and Stalin, but also (in the nineteen thirties) of Vyshinsky, the chief prosecutor during the Moscow Show Trials, in public at least.

At the time of the film, Stalin was just about to die, there was no thaw in the communist world and the revolts in 1956 against Stalinism and Soviet dominance in Hungary and Poland had yet to take place. There is no mention of any critical insights amongst the local communists in the action: their political feelings are largely gut reactions, of the sort which go with being dirt poor. The secondary plot is about a political campaign by an elegant, smart-talking Christian Democrat politician by the name of di Cosimo (he promises to bring running water to the island) who criticizes Mario, the love-stricken postman, for being in love with Beatrice after he admits that he is going to vote communist. He tells him that his preferred poet is d’Annunzio, who also had a muse named Beatrice. Gabriele D’Annunzio was a twentieth century nationalist poet who was very influential amongst the early Fascists, including Mussolini. In fact, the choice of the name Beatrice for Mario’s loved one and muse is highly significant, because that is also the name of the ideal woman of Italy’s national poet Dante Alighieri, the one who guides him through Heaven in The Divine Comedy. I think that Massimo Troisi, the actor playing Mario, actually looks a little like Dante Alighieri.

The island’s grim priest, the one with no feeling for poetry, has the fundamentalist right-wing views of the time, which were common amongst Catholics at the time of the Cold War. It’s all part of the film’s appealing 'retro' feel, with old black cars, early Vespas, the traditional wedding, the peculiarities of an Italy long before Berlusconi, all there for the savouring. But the main story is about the bored fisherman’s son Mario Ruppolo, who is fascinated, naively fascinated perhaps, with the famous visitor and the number of letters he receives from female admirers, in the pre-email days when people wrote them. The scene in which he asks Neruda “What is a metaphor?” brings to my mind many memories of teaching English, along with Neruda’s stock response – “the sky weeps” - but Mario gets it, and later makes attempts to do better than that.

The film is full of metaphors, not just the ones in Neruda's sublime poems, of which there are plenty: students of cinema would be able to spot dozens, for example the pinball which Beatrice pops into her mouth and which Mario carries around as a love token, and the statue of the Virgin in a fishing boat. Mario's personification of the fishing nets, using the adjective 'sad' recurs several times.

For me, a side-effect of the film is to bring to mind the terrible events of the seventies: Neruda died just after General Pinochet took over Chile in a violent military coup in 1973. He was already terminally ill in hospital with prostate cancer, and it was probably shock which finished him. Pinochet soldiers apparently wasted no time in diverting a stream through his house on the Pacific coast after ransacking it.

The acting throughout is superb, and Phillippe Noiret bears a startling resemblance to the real Neruda. He is absolutely credible in the role. Maria Grazia Cucinotta is just right as the innkeeper’s beautiful niece and Massimo Troisi is the ultimate in charm, for his lover on the screen and for his audience in front of it. His portrayal of the timid yet passionate postman must be the result of very careful Stanislavskian preparation, because it is just brilliant.

It was a great tragedy when he died shortly before the film came out, in 1994. He was a poet himself, as well as a great actor.

 

At the 68th Academy Awards in 1995, Il Postino received five nominations and one Academy Award. It also won the BAFTA Award for Best Film Not in the English Language.

 

Under Milk Wood in New Headingley Club

Richard Wilcocks writes:

Trio Literati’s and Theatre of the Dales’s current production of Dylan Thomas’s beautiful, funny and moving radio play from 1954 - Under Milk Wood – is one of the best I have seen on stage, intelligently directed, with much attention to detail, and impeccably acted. Every character lived life to the full in front of the audience last night in the New Headingley Club, even the dead ones, and it did not matter that the lighting was not up to playhouse standards, because Trio Lit and Theatre of the Dales can survive very well without it if necessary: they are veterans of pub and club rooms.

The play was sliced to about half of its original length by Adrian Metcalfe and David Robertson, and all the stitching was invisible. It was a wise, if not inevitable, move to manage without costumes and set (expensive, hard to cart around) although the cast wore a variety of striped tops to bond them together. They relied on the sort of movement which can be done in a small performance space, and the usual actor’s repertoire of voice, gesture and facial expression. It worked all the time. Nothing was ever touch-and-go. 

The Welsh accents sounded authentic enough to me, nicely varied to fit each member of the population of Llareggub. To pick out individual performances in a strong ensemble piece is difficult, but I have to record how much I loved the Reverend Eli Jenkins and his prayer, Butcher Beynon with his macabre sense of humour, Mr Mog Edwards the writer of letters, Mrs Pugh, at constant risk of ingesting poison, and Mrs Ogmore-Pritchard. I was moved to tears as always by Captain Cat’s memories of his dead lover Rosie Probert, and captivated by Myfanwy Price.

The cast included all of the Trio – Maggie Mash, Jane Oakeshott and Richard Rastall – together with Theatre of the Dales founder David Robertson and Arif Javid, a terrific Nogood Boyo.