Deryn Du (c) Bara Caws
Caernarfon’s Theatr Bara Caws, is pleased to present two new productions, ‘Croesi’r Rubicon’ and ‘Aderyn Du’ in the New Year.
Croesi’r Rubicon (Crossing the Rubicon) by Valmai Jones will be on tour from February 2nd – February 27th, 2010. This is the latest in the series of tongue in cheek thrillers written by Valmai Jones so beloved of Welsh audiences.
Following Dulce Domum and Actus Reus, this latest instalment sees an impoverished widow, Esme, take up a position as a house minder in a lonely rural cottage. The place is as replete with secrets as its absent owner, Esme’s new employer.
Events take sinister turn after sinister turn as a mysterious stranger’s arrival drives the story ever deeper and darker. Will poor Esme live to regret her decision to start afresh, will she survive at all?
By turns funny and frightening, Croesi’r Rubicon will no doubt prove a great draw for Bara Caws’ traditional audience.
The cast includes Valmai Jones and Christine Pritchard with Bryn Fon directing.
Bryn Fon has also adapted the second production for 2010, ‘Deryn Du’ from David Harrower’s gritty two hander play ‘Blackbird’. ‘Deryn Du’ will be on tour from 19th April – 8th May, 2010 and is for adults only.
Una and Ray, the principal characters in this unremittingly intense 80 – minute one-act by the Scottish playwright, are birds with broken wings – psychologically crippled by an episode that left both their lives in tatters.
She’s 27, he’s 56 and they’ve had a brief affair – about l5 years earlier, when he was 40 and she was l2. They haven’t seen each other since Ray was sent to prison. Una has endured a lifetime of being “talked about, pointed at, stared at”, while Ray had done his time, changed his name, moved to a new city, and rebuilt his life.
Now called Peter, he’s the manager of a medical-supplies manufacturing firm. Una, who’s found him after stumbling across his photo in a trade magazine in her doctor’s office, has him cornered in the littered lunchroom of his workplace. But why? To humilate him? Attack him? Or worse?
“Blackbird dissects paedophilia but also transcends that subject, finding universality in extreme circumstances. Anyone who’s ever tried to revisit a failed relationship- a broken love affair, a marriage that ended in bitter divorce, a childhood with abusive parents – will understand the challenge Una and Ray face as they sort through the secrets and self-deceptions, trying to comprehend the past so they can move forward…” (Albert Williams – Performing Arts Review).
The cast includes Bryn Fon and Fflur Medi Owen with Sion Humphreys directing.
Theatr Bara Caws is supported by Arts Council of Wales.
