Director’s Comments
I’ve always been good at love. I fell head over heels at 15 and was hooked. I loved the giddiness, the adrenalin, the gamble. And I was blessed, seeming to find love under every stone, round every corner. I drank in the sheer delight of fellow human beings. But then I won the double. I found myself in love with two people. I’ve heard many argue that this is not possible, but I know it is. Giddiness turned to anxiety, adrenalin to pain. I’d lost the gamble.
Tristan & Yseult began its journey nearly 2 years ago. As Cornwall’s oldest and greatest story it was asking to be told; Kneehigh, the obvious answer. But I was not sure. I didn’t want to make a show about romantic love, about the chosen ones – leave that to Hollywood. How could I take a story we all know so well and make it sing, chime with my own life? But I didn’t really know this story. As I began work, I realised that this ancient myth spoke straight to the dark heart of my own 21st century experience. This was not for Hollywood and happily ever after, this was for grown ups. For those of us who know that love is a trap as well as a liberator, that the pain of choosing one person over another tears the soul and never quite heals.
Simply, I love this production. It is one of those rare shows that became greater than the sum of its parts. It took on a life, a universality that touched and surprised me each time we performed. As the story unfolded, I realised there was not one person in the audience who didn’t profoundly recognise something in the situation – to love someone that you shouldn’t, to betray someone you love, to be betrayed, to be left and most painful – to be unloved. Suddenly this was not an epic tale of grand romantic love, held at arms length from our own experience, but a tender unravelling of love in all its beautiful and painful forms. The chorus took us through the piece, a band of ‘love-spotters’, the unloved. These are the people who look in on life, who are not chosen to play the starring role – these are at the heart of this production, because, if we have all known love, we have also known the opposite.
And so, Tristan & Yseult is my letter to love. It speaks of longing and giving, abandon and obsession, loss and despair. It intoxicates, as I have been intoxicated and hurts, as I have hurt. It tells how there is always a price, always a loser and always hope. It thanks love, it hates love and it celebrates love.
When first devising the piece, I began by literally ‘casting’ the writers. I asked Carl, with his technical and verbal genius, to write for the court: King Mark and Frocin. I asked him to write in iambic pentameter as a reference to the great epic courts in literature. Anna, I asked to look at the ‘heart-broken’: Brangian, Tristan, Yseult. Her direct and emotional voice lending itself to the tender poetry of the desperate. As the piece emerged, we began to place the text alongside the action and music, working into the themes and characters. But, as with all good devising processes, the magic lies where the boundaries blur, where technician becomes lover and poet the aggressor.
We are left with a script rich in detail, simple in it’s telling and true to the heart of the ancient myth.
Emma Rice – Director
