“In Eldersfield”
Chapter One • Chapter Two • Chapter Three • Chapter Four • Chapter Five • Chapter Six • Chapter Seven • Chapter Eight • Chapter Nine • Chapter Ten •
“In Eldersfield” is a decade-long, ten-chapter cycle of works for the twentieth century, to which we are no longer beholden but may always belong. Against a culture of lessening means and receding hopes, we raise the toast (again): to Dead Dogs, Dead Children, Dead Lovers, Dead Heroes, and how good it is to be alive. Broadening our concern for lost histories and unsayable things, we present our first epic of open questions and long silences, in a quiet refusal to mean.
(Solvay Conference, 1927. Einstein sits front row fifth from left, Dirac sits middle row fifth from left, and looks at Einstein. Image courtesy “the internet”).
Kings of England at the Solvay Conference with pupils from Kingswood Primary School, London, The Pit, The Barbican, April 2011.
The Cycle:
“In Eldersfield” is an ambitious work that seeks to develop a model of long-term commitment to social and cultural memory as a field of aesthetic, philosophical and political action, examining how pasts and futures are remembered and imagined in the event of live performance.
In the coming years we aim to refine and revolutionise our practice. Moving from a small-scale company to a mid-to-large-scale community of artists, audiences and participants, we will reconsider the economies and ecologies of performance, and its place in contemporary culture. Ten years’ work.
The First Chapter:
In ‘Chapter 1: Elegy for Paul Dirac’ we stage a few scenes from the life of Paul Dirac, Nobel Prize-winning physicist, aesthetician and redeemer. Dirac inherited a field of enquiry from Einstein and others and revolutionised our understanding of the material world and its mechanics, although he is barely known outside of his field.
This first Chapter invites audiences into a dialogue on hope and expectation, in a play of languages, translations, speech and silence. In order to reconsider live performance and the critical discourse it could inspire (now and in the future) “Elegy…” explores the constancies of loyalty, responsibility and redemption, examining some lessons from a life lived in a time radically different from our own, opening up a field of unknown, unseen, unheard-of histories.
‘“In Eldersfield” Chapter 1’ was performed on the 22nd & 23rd April 2011 as part of SPILL Festival 2011, double-billed, happily, with Sylvia Rimat’s “I guess if the stage exploded…”
The Cast: Rhiannon Armstrong played Albert Einstein, Simon Bowes played Ernest Rutherford; Max Burger played Peter Kapitza, Alex Eisenberg played Werner Heisenberg, Bryony Kimmings played The Parrot That Thinks; John Pinder playedPaul Dirac.
“Chapter One: Elegy” will tour in 2012. You can read full write ups by Theron Schmidt and Mary Patterson, Matt Trueman, Diana Damian, and Naima Khan
Audience Testimonies:
#1: “Simon Bowes’s latest and largest performance as ‘Kings of England’ sees a much-expanded cast of six performers, two live musicians and six school children: a provocative and fascinating proposition, which resolves itself with some beautiful music, and a dance from Bryony Kimmings in a shimmering parrot costume. The aesthetic felt strongly influenced by the work of companies like Goat Island and Deer Park. The presence of the school children brought an innocent curiosity, which I was grateful for. The live music counterpointed and complimented Bowes’ intelligent text. There was a sense of reverence about the performance, the weight of historical figures and the sense of the inescapable present, sitting in silence for twenty minutes, attending to what is there, sharing space with strangers” – Neil Callaghan, Neil & Simone, Soil, The Featherstonehaughs
#2: “Though the silence is probably the aspect of the work which will be most remembered, I loved the way you arrived there and used the breathing space it afforded the audience to continue the piece. I see so much work which is far too occupied with the spoken word, and actually it can be just very noisy, so it was almost therapeutic to experience a full twenty minutes of silence. “They were giving us a beautiful gift”, my friend exclaimed. “So much of our lives are spent being distracted and rushing around. Here we were given space.” It reminded me of yoga in many ways: the sense that it was a challenge; that you will get out what you put in; to surrender to the silence is to have a rewarding experience. For me, I felt that I recaptured a sense of space and time that I had otherwise lost. I know that hospitality plays a major role in all that you do, and while I loved the book, and the toast at the beginning, it was the giving of the twenty minutes that provided a gift for which I am still grateful” – Cheryl Gallagher, Freelance Artist & Facilitator
#3: “This performance marked a certain binding between the performers and the audience - its meticulous narration, beautiful musical score and choral dance invited a sense of celebration in whoever was present for the event. The magnified silence which the performers offered for all who were present, has remained with me since in my struggle and fascination with attempting to define the passing of time” – Tiffany Charrington, Performance / Installation Artist
#4: What is so exciting as an audience member here is how easy this is to get and how complex it is. How it invites you in and then makes you wonder what you are in for? We are given wine and before we know it we are agreeing to toast to death. The performance makes us wonder what memory and forgetting and time are. The 20-minute silence in the middle is a gift to the audience to think and to wonder, to wonder about what time feels like. And to observe how difficult receiving a gift is a gift is in the reaction of other audience members. The whispers of “Are they really going to do the twenty minutes?” “Can they?” “What is happening?” A piece that makes us feel the bravery and beauty of ageing and living and getting by. The promise of ten more chapters and ten more years is one we want the company to keep – Peader Kirk, Performance Maker, MKultra
Photos from Process:
Rehearsal: Theatre Delicatessen (x) 3-4 Picton Place, London, 27-02-11:
Photos: (c) Alex Eisenberg, Kings of England
Pilot Nights, Birmingham, 16-11-10:
Simon Bowes and John Pinder as Felix and Paul Dirac. In the first picture Felix marks out the house for dismantling. In the second, Felix Dies beneath the Hawthorne bush. In the third picture Paul Resurrects him, singing “Je Me Suis Levee un Matin De Mai”. Images from Scratch of Chapter 1, French Section, Pilot Night, 25th November 2010: Credits: Alicja Rogalska
Images: John Pinder as Paul Dirac, R&D: for Chapter 1; Timeline Exercise, Bespoke Brown Masking Tape, Wooden Table, Ink.
