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Coming Up
by Neil D’Souza
First performed at Watford Palace Theatre 10 - 24 October 2015
Cast (in alphabetical order)
| Alan/Simon Fernandez | Neil D’Souza |
| Older Jacob/Ghalib/Vicar | Ravin J. Ganatra |
| Hanna/Cook/Mrs Pereira/Tiger | Clara Indrani |
| Young Jacob/Alice | Goldy Notay |
| Daniel/Father Alvarez | Mitesh Soni |
All other parts played by members of the company.
Setting:
The action takes place in Mumbai in the present and Mangalore in the past.
Creative Team
| Director | Brigid Larmour |
| Associate Director/Movement Director | Shona Morris |
| Designer | Rebecca Brower |
| Lighting Designer | Prema Mehta |
| Sound Designer/Composer | Arun Ghosh |
| Assistant Director | Scott Le Crass |
| Company Stage Manager | Maddie Baylis |
| Deputy Stage Manager | Maria Gibbons |
| Assistant Stage Manager | Emma Ryan |
| Wardrobe Supervisor | Mark Jones |
| Dialect Coach | Helen Ashton |
With thanks to:
Ameet Chana, Jaz Deol, Aysha Kala, Shobu Kapoor, Nikesh Patel, Peter Singh, Divya Kasturi, Eli Rodrigues, Ethan Rodrigues and Lloyd Trott.
| Writer’s Note | Neil D’Souza |
The title ‘Coming Up’ came out of a conversation I had with director Brigid Lamour in 2008. I was pitching ideas for new plays to her and had got through my top two without much joy – so started talking about a recent trip I had made to India to visit family, my first in 12 years; noting how different it was to the place I remembered from childhood holidays in the 1970s. I mentioned to her, in passing, that Indian guests visiting the UK in the 70s and 80s would often use the phrase ‘India is coming up’, in reference to the increasing variety of modern/western goods and services that were becoming available there. It is from here that this project began.
If in the 1970s ‘Coming Up’ was more an expression of India’s aspirations, by the time I went in 2008, evidence of India’s ‘rise’ was on open display in the malls, the upscale restaurants, the call centres. I noticed in my family, that this rapid rate of development had created a new middle class: the number of cars they owned, the foreign holidays they were planning, their expanding property portfolios. Still at the same time, the old trappings were there – most significantly the poverty, in all its manifestations be it homelessness or street children. I also asked myself, even if India’s GDP had ballooned, what about social attitudes? Was culture so quick and easy to change? What were current day attitudes towards women?
Into this melting pot, went Alan, the protagonist, a British Asian, an ‘English’ Indian born here, brought up by parents born there, one of us, wanting to make a quick buck, while needing what we all need – love, understanding, and above all, connection.
And so the story began . . .
| Directors’ Note | Brigid Larmour and Shona Morris |
Over the course of two decades, our collaborations have evolved into a movement based approach to theatre making, to reflect our commitment to the power of collaboration and the shared imagination of performers, creatives and audience. Movement and acting and the way we produce our plays are integrated.
Watford Palace Theatre produces theatre that is open hearted and socially aware and entertaining, and our work together sits within this philosophy.
Movement expresses the heart and the want of the character through action. It carries a story with power and immediacy, without high concept and high tech production styles. The actor is the heart of the work.
We work with our designers and collaborators to create a unified stage space that can serve as a playground to respond imaginatively to the text, in which we evolve the world of the play. The rehearsal process involves asking questions about place and character which we solve dynamically and physically. We have found that these solutions carry the action forward like a piece of music and we use the language of music and dynamics to make our work.
We like it when the audience sees movement and action as one thing, because it is the story we want them to experience.
We seek to place the actors in a magic space of possibilities which they change by the way they use the space, and in which they transform from character to character in full view, like turning on a sixpence. Music and lighting, therefore, don’t direct the audience what to feel, as in a film, but take their place alongside the acting and movement to create the world of the play.
This world is created by the ensemble in front of you. We use the principles of Chorus/Ensemble based acting to change the space, instead of changing the set. This chorus work can create metaphor and meaning, a group of performers alive and in the moment to express a shared idea or collective response. So we enjoy taking you out of naturalism.
The world of the play that we create serves the text, the words and the ideas in the plays we are lucky enough to work on. We work closely with the writers to make sure their meaning is carried through the physical work we do. We believe that taking the text as a starting point, and finding the theatrical language it offers us without distorting its meaning, is a powerful way of approaching new text based writing. New writing is not always naturalistic, and we need varied approaches to explore the complexity of ideas it can (and should) provoke in audience and actor alike.
We celebrate the creativity of our writers, performers and collaborators: theatre is a shared conversation and we are proud to be part of it.
‘No attempt is made to put the stage (and audience) in a trance’ Brecht.
Cast Biographies (in alphabetical order)
Neil trained at RADA and has since worked extensively in theatre, film, television and radio.
Theatre credits include: How To Hold Your Breath and Khandan (Royal Court); Drawing The Line (Hampstead); Much Ado About Nothing and Midnight’s Children (RSC); Tintin (Watford Palace Theatre and West End); The Man Of Mode (National); Twelfth Night (West End); A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Colchester, Mercury); Merchant Of Venice and The Honest Whore (Globe).
For Television Neil’s work includes: EastEnders, Doctors, Hustle, Citizen Khan, Undercover, Holby City, Don’t Take My Baby, Happiness, Back Up (BBC); Not Safe For Work, Friday Night Dinner, Raised by Wolves (Channel 4); Albert’s Memorial, The Bill (ITV) and Amerikan Kannibal (Discovery).
Film work includes: Filth, Still Life, Closed Circuit, Wild Target, Another Me, My Sweet Home, Gate To Heaven and the lead role in Italian Movies (2012).
Radio includes: The Red
