Press release
Riverside Studios, London
Tuesday
4 – Sunday 9 September 2012 7.30pm, mat at 2pm on Saturday
Press
night Tuesday 4 September, with reception with Ben Okri
‘A truly extraordinary and rich, and wild, and fascinating production. I
am tempted to call it the theatre of risk.’
- Ben Okri
(commenting on the opening performance at the Edinburgh Fringe)
Fresh from this year’s Edinburgh Fringe, Lazzi bring their production of
Ben Okri’s The Comic Destiny to Riverside Studios, London.
Ben Okri’s story confronts the violence and the predatory nature of our world
through a cast of characters each with their own disturbing histories and
personalities. It is an intense, surreal piece with touches of dark humour
throughout: ‘…the play has a serpentine narrative that tantalisingly
encrypts meaning’ (Three Weeks). Edinburgh reviewers have particularly
noted the high standard of the acting in the piece and the experimental
approach of the company: ’acting power and a boldness of experimentation
that is seriously impressive' (Broadway Baby), 'smashing performances… innovative’
(The Scotsman), ‘the acting was faultless and utterly convincing’ (Three
Weeks).
Ben Okri approached Director David WW Johnstone to adapt The Comic
Destiny in 2010. He was looking for a director prepared to take risks, for a
company that might bring a fresh insight to his piece. His original story has
been abridged for this adaptation, and despite the apparent improvisational
nature of the acting, all words spoken on stage are taken directly from his
text. No one performance is quite the same, and the process of adaptation
appears to happen afresh each night before the audience’s eyes.
Lazzi weave a variety of influences, drawn from Buster Keaton, Laurel
& Hardy, and commedia to Dada, Grotowski and Kantor, and bring elements of
all of these to Ben Okri’s abstract world of patriarchs, skeletons and imps,
asylum escapees and a young couple seeking more loving arguments.
Director David WW Johnstone says, ‘Lazzi likes to delve into the
rough and raw edges of theatre. Whether working with comedy or tragedy, I like
to ask the audience to experience a courageous experiment on the part of the
performers. Our piece starts with the actors themselves gathering to rehearse.
How will they adapt and interpret the text? I wanted Lazzi to take Ben Okri’s
story and show how the borderline between actor and character can dissolve in
unexpected ways. The characters of the piece can be gloriously oblivious to our
attempts to restrain them – the process of adaptation itself must be released
into their hands. Further insight was gained from comparing the relentless
suffering in the myth of Sisyphus, where he is forced to roll a stone up a hill
only for it to endlessly fall back down, with the film of Laurel & Hardy
attempting to deliver a piano and having to push it up endless steps, with the
inevitable comic consequences (http://youtu.be/UWm0nXJYLmk). Both have a futility, yet one torments
us, the other makes us laugh. Both speak of the human condition – and slapstick
is a somewhat violent art. Navigating the line between pessimism and optimism
is a fragile path and our piece explores this human dilemma.’
Ben Okri will be present at the opening, and at an after-show reception.
Both Ben Okri and David WW Johnstone are available for interviews relating to
this project.
