Cardiff-based theatre group Hijinx is about to tour two new one-act plays as part of their pop-up pods series.
The shows are aimed at challenging the audience’s perspective on the world and are each performed by one actor with learning disabilities and one without.
Hijinx Pods. Photo: Malwina Matusiewicz
I caught up with artistic manager Gaynor Lougher who directs one of the new plays - Flossie and Jet.
It stars Clare Parry-Jones and Kirsty Rosser as two sisters who grew up in a stately home yet now find themselves homeless. It is a non-verbal piece which involves traditional mask techniques.
She told me: “The inspiration for Flossie and Jet was really the two actors and how they interact. Clare has a lot of experience with clowning and working with the mask and I wanted to explore that further.
“We started with the idea of two bag ladies or hoarders but the sister dynamic worked really well. The idea of faded grandeur and these two women going out as innocents into the world, with their picnic baskets seemed to work really nicely.”
The show’s humour relies on the way the sisters’ personalities are conveyed non-verbally and how they convey the differences between their likes and quirks.
Some of the rehearsals even took place on a rain-soaked Penarth pier where Gaynor and a colleague observed the actors at work. They enjoyed an impromptu picnic in public and experimented with how they interacted.
The other new piece in the theatre’s repertoire is Snoutology for Beginners, a seminar for humans, delivered by dogs, which teaches the audience how to use their snout more effectively.
Snooks Brothers Aquatic. Photo: Malwina Matusiewicz
Both new shows will be touring alongside three existing interactive comedy pods: the popular Snooks Brothers Bank and Snooks Brothers Aquatic which have toured extensively in Europe, and The Waiting Room which premiered at Wales Millennium Centre in summer 2013.
The Snooks Brothers is inspired by Tellson's Bank in Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities, and is a comical offbeat play about the relationship between two brothers and their familiarity, contempt and painstakingly rigid routine. They previously featured in a BBC Wales blog in 2011 when they performed in empty retail units in Cardiff’s Morgan Arcade.
Gaynor told me that the pods mark a new and innovative way of touring for the company which puts the audience at the very heart of the performance.
She said: “The pods are portable and have really enabled us to devise pieces with a particular actor with a learning disability in mind and pair them up with other actors whose skills complement theirs.
“It means we can perform the five shows as a sort of pick and mix, in a variety of combinations, everywhere from festivals to studio theatres, venue foyers, cafés, streets or fields without all the logistics and planning of taking a big theatre group on the road.
“It’s a really flexible way of working and enables us to continue being inclusive and put on really high quality work for audiences to see and enjoy.”
Prior to embarking on a UK tour, a preview of the brand new pods - Snoutology for Beginners and Flossie and Jet - can be seen free of charge at Aberystwyth Arts Centre on Friday 14 February at 2pm and at Galeri, Caernarfon on Saturday 15 February.
To book tickets please call 01970 62 32 32 or visit www.aber.ac.uk/artscentre.