Letters from Iceland
Explorers explored.
A reenactment of a little known random meeting 80 years ago.
Two British poets exploring Iceland meet by accident in a small country side bed and breakfast, both describe the meeting - as well as the country - in wildly different manners.
Letters from Iceland is an explorative performance piece based on two books of the same name that describe travelling to Iceland in 1936.
These two texts present 3 voices; Louis MacNiece & W.H. Auden, writing whilst travelling the island together and Jean Young, an adventurous academic with a passion for all things Icelandic, travelling solo.
Auden and MacNiece feel little affection for this new country they find themselves in. The scenes of primitive but charming Nordic agriculture they had hoped to soak up as an antidote to the ominous political situation in Western Europe (the rise of fascism in the 1930s) gravely disappoints with the pair cursing the smell of fish that overhangs the island and seeking solace in writing poems of harsh ridicule about Iceland, it’s inhabitants and their customs.
Elsewhere on the island Jean Young is delighting in every rain soaked moment, voluntarily engaging in months of manual labour on farms across the island in return for little more than sour milk and fish & rhubarb porridge.
We want to explore, re-mix and bring to life these texts through an initial R&D to see what, where and how we can take these characters into a performative space. We feel there’s a lot of territory in these texts that needs discovering through the doing, through bodies in a room. We drawn to these characters and their words, rich in humour, irony and the language of adventure but perhaps these travelogues which, on the surface pass commentary on a foreign people, reveal more about Britishness and our varied experience of our own little island, than of the people they sought to discover.
A reenactment of a little known random meeting 80 years ago.
Two British poets exploring Iceland meet by accident in a small country side bed and breakfast, both describe the meeting - as well as the country - in wildly different manners.
Letters from Iceland is an explorative performance piece based on two books of the same name that describe travelling to Iceland in 1936.
These two texts present 3 voices; Louis MacNiece & W.H. Auden, writing whilst travelling the island together and Jean Young, an adventurous academic with a passion for all things Icelandic, travelling solo.
Auden and MacNiece feel little affection for this new country they find themselves in. The scenes of primitive but charming Nordic agriculture they had hoped to soak up as an antidote to the ominous political situation in Western Europe (the rise of fascism in the 1930s) gravely disappoints with the pair cursing the smell of fish that overhangs the island and seeking solace in writing poems of harsh ridicule about Iceland, it’s inhabitants and their customs.
Elsewhere on the island Jean Young is delighting in every rain soaked moment, voluntarily engaging in months of manual labour on farms across the island in return for little more than sour milk and fish & rhubarb porridge.
We want to explore, re-mix and bring to life these texts through an initial R&D to see what, where and how we can take these characters into a performative space. We feel there’s a lot of territory in these texts that needs discovering through the doing, through bodies in a room. We drawn to these characters and their words, rich in humour, irony and the language of adventure but perhaps these travelogues which, on the surface pass commentary on a foreign people, reveal more about Britishness and our varied experience of our own little island, than of the people they sought to discover.
"Iceland is not a myth; it is a solid portion of the earth’s surface.” – Pliny Miles as quoted in Auden and MacNeice's Letters from Iceland.
Creative Team
Alice Bonifacio is an actor and musician. Credits as an actor include Eight (Trafalgar Studio) Hedda Gabler (Icarus Theatre, National Tour) and Will (The Arcola). Alice has trained in physical theatre and clowning a with Complicite and L'Accademia Dell'Arte. As both an actor and musician Alice enjoys exploring city-lore and reinventions of folk stories for contemporary audiences. She co-devised The Folk Contraption with Sam Lee which toured to The Old Vic Vaults, London Wonderground and Latitude Festival and is one half of Nancy Goose, a folk duo who combine their classical backgrounds with the inspiring folkloric traditions of the North, infusing their music with allegory, poetry and drama.
Olivia Furber is a theatre maker. Regularly nomadic and highly interdisciplinary she has devised and directed audio-visual works in France and Slovenia, promenade performances in glue factories and car parks and has recently assistant directed productions at London International Festival of Theatre, York Theatre Royal and Opera North. She leads on the development of new projects and artist mentoring at Theatre Hullabaloo, the North East’s specialist provider of theatre for young audiences. With Jo Tyabji she co-founded ivo, a theatre company that specialises in creating multi-mediatic & multi-lingual theatre. Ivo’s next show In the Vice Like Grip of It will be touring to The Lowry, Theatre on the Mill & ARC Stockton in Spring 2016.
Elin Petersdottir www.elinpetersdottir.com
Creative Team
Alice Bonifacio is an actor and musician. Credits as an actor include Eight (Trafalgar Studio) Hedda Gabler (Icarus Theatre, National Tour) and Will (The Arcola). Alice has trained in physical theatre and clowning a with Complicite and L'Accademia Dell'Arte. As both an actor and musician Alice enjoys exploring city-lore and reinventions of folk stories for contemporary audiences. She co-devised The Folk Contraption with Sam Lee which toured to The Old Vic Vaults, London Wonderground and Latitude Festival and is one half of Nancy Goose, a folk duo who combine their classical backgrounds with the inspiring folkloric traditions of the North, infusing their music with allegory, poetry and drama.
Olivia Furber is a theatre maker. Regularly nomadic and highly interdisciplinary she has devised and directed audio-visual works in France and Slovenia, promenade performances in glue factories and car parks and has recently assistant directed productions at London International Festival of Theatre, York Theatre Royal and Opera North. She leads on the development of new projects and artist mentoring at Theatre Hullabaloo, the North East’s specialist provider of theatre for young audiences. With Jo Tyabji she co-founded ivo, a theatre company that specialises in creating multi-mediatic & multi-lingual theatre. Ivo’s next show In the Vice Like Grip of It will be touring to The Lowry, Theatre on the Mill & ARC Stockton in Spring 2016.
Elin Petersdottir www.elinpetersdottir.com
"Yet another experience entirely new—a ride—about two & a half hours on a lorry (held coal last) outside—with the rucksacks & a tub of butter & sack of salt & bundle of rhubarb & saddle! Bumptity— bumptity—hop-là—down the hills & over the streams and up round the bends—once I was almost “thrown”—the bolt-hook I was cling- ing to with me right hand jerked out of place—it kept one of the “sides” of t’lorry in place! The sides were only a little over a foot high & I sat on a box back to lorry-driver & his two companions “inside” passengers, to wit, Astrid & an Icelandic girl." Letters from Iceland - Jean Young.