Sean Burnett Dugdale-Martin
Birthday Book of Storms by Theatre of Storms Collective is directed by Jaime G. Dörner, written and assistant directed by R. Johns and production design is by Peter Mumford. The performance is a work of fiction about Sylvia Plath, Ted Hughes, Assia Wevill and Shura that is not a biography. It is magical realism and describes its setting as a “magic, surrealist temporality”. This alternative style finds inspiration in poetry, just like its character did, but at points becomes difficult to follow.
The production is an ensemble, slow-burn drama that engages in a liminal, alternative telling of Syliva Plath's (Anita Torrance) love with Ted Hughes (Phil Roberts), his love affair with Assia Wevill (Tania Lentini), and their later life living with Ted’s Father (Jim Daly). There is no content warning for the production but it does deal with suicide.
The set design by Mumford leans into the style of the story they are trying to tell. The play “moves beyond the usual Anglo-centric telling of the Ted Hughes/Sylvia Plath history” and sets the piece in a liminal, semi-deconstructed library where characters evoke scenes and retellings by engaging with the librarians. In the Hannah Playhouse there are two cement blocks flanking either side of the stage which go up to the ceiling, slanted so the front of stage is wider than the back. Set forward from these blocks are bookshelves either side, without backs so you can see through them. There is a large wooden table center-stage, and at the back of the stage are two sets of three newsprints hanging from wire. One is white newspaper with black text as we are used to seeing and one is black newspaper with white print which evokes, for me, the inverse printing block used to stamp text onto white paper. I enjoy this setting at the back of the scene because in a simple sense it makes me think about it poetically. They have the same text, hold the same story, but are also opposites. One is used to multiply the existence of the other. The story behind the story. The piece itself engages with the Sylvia Plath/Ted Hughes story in an alternative, poetic and liminal style and it’s satisfying to find those aspirations captured well in the set since in many ways the set is our first engagement of any play and should capture its essence. Props to Mumford and the team for their excellent work.
Birthday Book of Storms is 105 minutes long and I feel like there are many lines that could be left behind without losing anything from the text as a whole. There is a lot of time spent with Ted Hughes' character (Phil Roberts) which only solidifies our knowledge that he was an odious sleazebag. I understand that the depiction of Ted Hughes as super gross was intentional- and Roberts brings the crusty, desperate character to life very well! Because the character was so succinctly brought to life by Roberts the production could reduce time given to him. Shura is the unwanted (by Ted) child of Ted and Assia, the woman he cheated on Sylvia Plath with (there really is nothing good about this guy). Shura is, for me, the most interesting exploration of the characters' relationships to each other, their relationship to their respective world, and also the most interesting mix of realism and surrealism. Shura, in a lot of ways, encapsulates the poetry written by Hughes and the love he has for his partners but is wrapped in a human form that causes him contempt. Despising his creation for being a mirror to himself.
This project was first supported by the City of Port Phillip, Australia, in 2021 with their Cultural Development Fund Recovery grants and then had its first play reading at the Elwood St Kilda Neighbourhood Learning Centre in 2022. It’s come across the ditch to Wellington and is being performed at the Hannah Playhouse until the 10th August.
The set design by Mumford leans into the style of the story they are trying to tell. The play “moves beyond the usual Anglo-centric telling of the Ted Hughes/Sylvia Plath history” and sets the piece in a liminal, semi-deconstructed library where characters evoke scenes and retellings by engaging with the librarians. In the Hannah Playhouse there are two cement blocks flanking either side of the stage which go up to the ceiling, slanted so the front of stage is wider than the back. Set forward from these blocks are bookshelves either side, without backs so you can see through them. There is a large wooden table center-stage, and at the back of the stage are two sets of three newsprints hanging from wire. One is white newspaper with black text as we are used to seeing and one is black newspaper with white print which evokes, for me, the inverse printing block used to stamp text onto white paper. I enjoy this setting at the back of the scene because in a simple sense it makes me think about it poetically. They have the same text, hold the same story, but are also opposites. One is used to multiply the existence of the other. The story behind the story. The piece itself engages with the Sylvia Plath/Ted Hughes story in an alternative, poetic and liminal style and it’s satisfying to find those aspirations captured well in the set since in many ways the set is our first engagement of any play and should capture its essence. Props to Mumford and the team for their excellent work.
Birthday Book of Storms is 105 minutes long and I feel like there are many lines that could be left behind without losing anything from the text as a whole. There is a lot of time spent with Ted Hughes' character (Phil Roberts) which only solidifies our knowledge that he was an odious sleazebag. I understand that the depiction of Ted Hughes as super gross was intentional- and Roberts brings the crusty, desperate character to life very well! Because the character was so succinctly brought to life by Roberts the production could reduce time given to him. Shura is the unwanted (by Ted) child of Ted and Assia, the woman he cheated on Sylvia Plath with (there really is nothing good about this guy). Shura is, for me, the most interesting exploration of the characters' relationships to each other, their relationship to their respective world, and also the most interesting mix of realism and surrealism. Shura, in a lot of ways, encapsulates the poetry written by Hughes and the love he has for his partners but is wrapped in a human form that causes him contempt. Despising his creation for being a mirror to himself.
This project was first supported by the City of Port Phillip, Australia, in 2021 with their Cultural Development Fund Recovery grants and then had its first play reading at the Elwood St Kilda Neighbourhood Learning Centre in 2022. It’s come across the ditch to Wellington and is being performed at the Hannah Playhouse until the 10th August.