-Cockpit theatre, Camden Fringe Festival: 10th-11th August 2022/ Baron’s Court Theatre: 30th August- 17th September 2022-
Director/ Dramaturg/ Set designer
The Sea Between
-Or Iphigenia in London-
by Demi Leigh
Beneath the leafy canopy,
I found you, my love
Predetermined.
And through the storms of life
I will always find you,
We will be each other's harbour,
My love, my answer,
Since the day you spirited me away
Away from me.
Let the sea wash our souls,
erode the shores of our solitary islands
until we melt into each others arms
in the sea that stands between us.
Let the waters mix the sweet taste of our lips
until our sweat dries white on our bodies
Spirit, who spirited me away from my own self
I set you adrift
Let the sea wash away the words
the love, now castaway by two lives
too distant to ever be united.
‘I want to hear your stories…’
-Ginny-
The Play
Can love overcome the cultural barriers that defines us?
Outside of a world they feel too distant from themselves, Ginny, a Greek artist living in London, and Mike, a British solicitor, will meet, finding in each other a safe harbour where to land, seek shelter and build a life.
In the Ocean of tempestuous love, they will learn to navigate cohabitation and cultural differences.
But the serenity of the nest they build for each other is at stake: secrets can creep in, destroying a drop at the time, the idyllic vision of their dreams.
Will love, then, be enough to bridge the sea that stands between them?
The Idea
The Background- The myth
The sea between roots back to the character of Iphigenia, daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, whose life was spared from sacrifice by Artemis in exchange for an existence spent far from home, serving as a priestess for the Goddess of Hunt.
The character appears in two of Euripides' most famous plays: Iphigenia in Aulis (408-406 BC) and Iphigenia in Tauris (414-412 BC).
In Iphigenia in Aulis, we recognise the critical aspects of a woman victim of the event, brought by her own father (at the beginning of the trojan campaign) to accept her faith as a victim of sacrifice.
Saved by Artemis in extremis, before the axe can fall on her neck (substituted by a deer), she travels through the Aether (the bright upper sky) to Tauris, where years after, we will reencounter her.
The second part of the myth sees a woman that has matured. Iphigenia in Tauris describes a character whose faith has been accepted. She is now a Priestess sacrificing every foreign man setting foot on the shores of Tauris (current Crimea).
In this far land, she will eventually meet with her long-lost brother Orestes. When she recognises him, she'll refuse to sacrifice him to Artemis; she'll take her and her brother's faith in charge and escape from the tyranny of Thaos (king of Tauris).
The Development
The Sea Between is a play that tries to follow the path of Iphigenia's character's journey, looking at her transformation from a girl that follows the course of a written faith to the one of a woman that takes her life into her hands and actively decides to be the Artifex of her own destiny.
The travel she makes through the Aether is the perfect setting for a story that transcends the canonic time and space of mythology. To modernise the themes, we decided to transpose the play into modern London.
Iphigenia becomes Ginny, a greek artist who, away from home, is looking for her own path in life. The predestined faith is her relationship with Mike, and the events she accepts faithfully surround a fundamentally toxic relationship.
Ginny, like the Iphigenia of Euripides, is a woman who cannot be seen nor accepted. Her thirst for life and youthful energy are the perfect ground for people to take advantage of her.
The acceptance of the worst violence inflicted on her, paradoxically, is nothing compared to the betrayal of her love and trust.
As a process, we have questioned ourselves, 'what happened to Iphigenia between those two stories?' 'what could be the keystone that encloses such a radical change in her character?'
Ginny becomes an Iphigenia in transformation, a woman fundamentally lost and broken, whose events are gonna shape her future and herself, in that space that stands between the key events of her life, like a silk moth that slowly hatches her cocoon before flying away in her ethereal life.
‘I believe in us; do you believe in us?’
-Mike-
The Process
In April 2022, Demi and I got in contact with the idea of bringing a new life to The Sea Between. The original text was performed under the direction of Lee Lomas at Etcetera Theatre in February 2022.
My first instinct was to root back to the idea of greek tragedy, highlight more of the dramatic events of the story and reinforce the notion of drama.
As a first step, we went into a couple of dramaturgy sessions, restructuring the play into a format that could work progressively toward the story's climax. We reimagined the arch of the characters and looked for the most vital elements that could sustain the play's narrative.
With Demi, we discussed the importance of the themes and the search for a voice that could stand out more.
We tried to root back to her European and Mediterranean heritage in search of elements to make her voice speak louder. We looked at factors such as the sounds, the texture and the taste that a country like Greece can have.
We thought in opposition, thinking about what the absence of these elements could represent for Ginny as a foreign woman in a country with substantial differences from her culture. Having restructured the play, Demi wrote a second/third and a final draft for 'The Sea Between'.
A second fundamental element of the creative process was exploring the character's dynamic through improvisation.
Seen the nature of Demi's voice, that stands out for the effortless capacity to write realistic human interactions; one of the main challenges of the rehearsing process was to find the correct calibration between humanity and spitefulness in those scenes where Mike and Ginny fight.
The characters' vulnerability and incapacity to find a middle space to effectively communicate were improvised by Demi and Matt in front of the camera before Demi could transcribe it and imprint it in the fabric of the play.
The Technical Elements
The set concept and design were my own, as well as the choice of Sounds and Music.
The idea was to create and represent a Nest-like space where the two characters could share their life together. Thus the use of elements like foliage and wooden sticks to create a frame around the bed that operated as a central piece and the two character's shared space.
The presence of a Mirror in the corner helped the access to more symbolic elements of the play like the dream, and the Props use was designed to represent the motion of the birds nesting: adding material to reinforce the security and solidity of the space, and take those elements off in the moments of fight and confrontation.
The sounds were a collection of elements such as waves and Cicadas that guided the story in the scene changes and the Dream sequences.
The Sea elements and the waves, as a representation of a breath that stretch time and space, were accompanied by a lighting whitewash, and the cicadas, mixed with waves crush sound, were attending the dreams represented by a lighting blue wash.
Those two elements represented for Demi and me (both of Mediterranean origin) a step back into the memories of summers spent in Greece and Italy.
The lights were designed and operated by: Cian Feasey at Cockpit Theatre, Otto Jäger and Leo Bacica at Baron's Court Theatre.
The Cast
-
Writer/Producer/Actor
Demi is a Greek-born writer and actor. She's been active in the London theatre scene since appearing in a 2017 production of Attempts on her Life by Martin Crimp. Her short plays have been performed in London venues (Etcetera Theatre, Tristan Bates). The Sea Between is her first full-length play, inspired by her lived experience as an immigrant creative in the UK. She is also currently featured in She Shrieked by David Stokes, at the Actors East Theatre.
-
Actor
Matt (he/him) trained in Screen acting working actors studio london and IDSA while also having an extensive theatrical background. His recent credits include: Frank in 'Universal's Monster Live' in Japan, Person 2 in the South West tour of 'Be' , upcoming feature 'Caledonia' , and the Voice of Jonathan Hail in award winning audio series 'The Realm Tree'.
Photos by Jane Kuznekova and Vittorio Parri