Spectacular drama Stranger Beasts at old Geevor mine to be Wildworks Theatre's most ambitious work
A new outdoor landscape-based performance at a derelict old tin mine in west Cornwall will be the most ambitious ever, theatre company Wildworks has promised. Stranger Beasts will be a promenade performance across several stages on the clifftop site at Geevor tin mine in Pendeen in West Penwith, and will be set against a wide Atlantic backdrop as the sun sets.
Co-written by Wildworks Theatre’s artistic director Mydd Pharo and Wildworks founding artist Mercedes Kemp, Stranger Beasts tells the story Belerion, a girl born of a cosmic mother and an earth-born father, bound to change the destinies of her land and her people.
The drama has its roots firmly planted in myth and fairytales such as Cupid and Psyche, Beauty and the Beast and Angela Carter’s story The Tiger’s Bride.
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"This promises be one of our most ambitious productions," Mydd said. "With a bold intention to embody Cornwall and its incredible landscape in human female form.
"Stranger Beasts is a life story and a love story that explores the transformative nature of strangers. It reminds us that despite the surface wounds and scars that we gather through life, sometimes all it takes is the power of a stranger to hold up a magic mirror to reflect and remind us of what strength lies beneath.”
He added: "It’s a love-song to the land and a wild cry to the skies."
The narrator will be played by Mary Woodvine, star of Mark Jenkin’s acclaimed film Enys Men and his directing debut, the BAFTA-winning film Bait. Three actresses - Charlotte Merriam, Catrin Walker-Booth and Hannah McPake - share the role of Belerion.
Four more - Bec Applebee, Agnieszka Blonska, Antonia Kemi Coker and Kyla Goodey - make up the all-women cast.
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In the story Belerion grows up wild and motherless and as she reaches womanhood her ordeal deepens. She is forced into an unwanted femininity and exploited by those who should love her but who wish to tame her.
Her stormy rage at cruel fate brings a Stranger/Beast to the shore and together they journey through the Thin Place, the boundary between land and sea, where the veil between worlds is at its most fragile. A liminal space where anything could happen.
The nature of the Beast is being kept under wraps but the theatre company is confident of an intense dramatic impact on the night.
“Stranger Beasts will explore the spirit of place that inhabits the wild Tin Coast," co-writer Mercedes added. "The character of Belerion embodies a land scarred by mining, a ravaged landscape. The arrival of a Stranger gives Belerion a chance to love herself again, to find the wildness and the strength in her wounded body to face future storms.”
Stranger Beasts comes on the back of Wildworks' success comedy play Kneebone Cadillac this summer, which took place at the banger rally race track in United Downs.
A supporting cast of around 90, whose ages range from a 10-year-old to a woman in her 80s, is drawn from communities across Cornwall and has been rehearsing at Pendeen over recent weeks.
Stranger Beasts will be staged at Geevor Tin Mine, Pendeen, Penzance, TR19 7EW, from September 18 to October 6. Ticket prices have been set as low as possible at £5 per person. For more information and to book tickets go to https://wildworks.org.uk
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