Episode 9 The Arts Show

This programme contains some strong language.

Welcome to The Arts Show, your monthly guide to the best arts and

culture in Northern Ireland. And what a year of culture it has been.

It is hard to believe this is our last show of 2013. An amazing year

for the arts in Northern Ireland. Here is what is coming up. We meet

jazz pianist extraordinaire Neil Cowley, who has played with everyone

from Rhianna to Adele, as he prepares for his closing concert as

the UK's City of Culture's musician in residence. The editors of the two

main newspapers in Derry-Londonderry share their conclusions as the year

of culture draws to a close. And members of our arts community

tell us their cultural highlight of 2013. I have been to London for a

few times in recent years to see the Turner Prize and never enjoyed it

half as much as when it was in Derry. There was a huge sense of fun

about the whole show that invoke curiosity and yet it was intelligent

as well. My favourite piece was the paintings of people that did not

exist, which was fascinating, something you do as a child. Hugely

fun characters as well. Music every day, without a doubt. From dusk till

Dawn, the city which is already known as the city of music, came out

en masse. We started in Donegal and to go from there to The Sky

Orchestra with orchestral music waking up the city at dawn, it was

just incredible. The world premiere of Sam Shepard's A Particle of Dread

- Oedipus Variations is one of the most anticipated highlights of the

UK's City of Culture. Written for Field Day Theatre Company it stars

Stephen Rea and is directed by Nancy Meckler. I caught up with them

during rehearsals. Isn't this the place where you held me down, your

foot on my back, my chest in the mud? Here, wasn't it? Field Day

Theatre Company was founded in 1980 by Brian Friel and Stephen Rea, and

it brought together the best literary minds of their time. They

produced a new writing exploring the schisms and conflicts within society

here. After a hiatus of 15 years, Field Day returned with a clutch of

new plays for the City of Culture. The city has moved on. I am certain

it will not move back. What theatre can do that politics here

particularly does not do is to very subtly open up ideas and language,

particularly language. What does it mean to be premiere airing Sam

Shepard's new play here in Derry? It is a big return for Field Day to get

Sam to write a play, to get Nancy to direct it, and I really believe we

have a world-class group of people here working on this, you know. Sam

Shepard is the Pulitzer prize-winning writer of the out of

the way dusty expanses of the United States. What does Derry feel like as

a writer? Very close. Continually you are meeting people. People are

right up next to each other and people are very friendly. Does the

city where we are now, does that inform the play? Sam knew he was

writing it for Derry said he had that in mind. I thought it was

interesting that in rehearsal Sam would walk the walls every

lunchtime. For him it became part of the process to walk the walls and

see the different parts of Derry. He is like a domiciled Derry man now.

He says people know him when he walked along the street. Really? He

is wearing a tweed jacket and I am worried now. Me has gone native? I

prefer the cowboy! You have done six plays now. Yes, I met some in the

70s. We both met him in the 70s, and by directed a very short and old

play of his. -- eyes I directed. We are on the same wavelength. I get

his writing. As soon as the light starts to come up, I should start

talking? Stephen Rea left his native Belfast in the late 1960s to carve

out a career as one of the most visceral actors of his generation on

stage and on screen, achieving an Oscar nomination in 1992 for The

Crying Game. I trust his approach. He doesn't make the big deal out of

motivation, for instance. American actors tend to overindulge in

reasoning and meaning and all that kind of stuff. In a play like this,

you just cannot. Gripped by hawks and eagles, remnants, ribbons of

people, strings. Small traces. A King. The story begins its curse

right here. Begins to crawl. Naked traces, all. Family split in two and

a man who can't escape his fate. We can trace these things throughout

Sam Shepard's writing, but A Particle of Dread - Oedipus

Variations is a modern setting of the Greek tragedy written nearly

2500 years ago. Oedipus has committed a terrible crime, but

doesn't realise it until the final act. It fired Sam Shepard's

imagination. I have been ruminating on this subject for a long, long

time. Sam produced a lot of disparate areas of writing and the

job was to put it all together and that is where Nancy came in. We had

this huge spread of scenes all over the floor. My goodness, where do we

begin? Let's try that one and that one. Eventually Sam was able to take

that away. Suddenly he had a sense of how to put it all together. You

want no trace left of him, I suppose? Nothing but the toenail.

Icon by growing up with this nightmare. -- I can't bear. You

don't know. He could be revered. He could become anything. Maybe it is

just you who can't take it. The pictures in your mind, the imagery,

your husband locking the baby-sitter. Maybe it is only you.

Killing your baby will not fix that. 20 bucks. $10 then? Are you out of

your mind? Five? Where are you going? Left my purse in the car. The

character suddenly realises that he is guilty. I think the recognition

is the core of the whole play. As an actor, Sam Shepard achieved iconic

status in Hollywood films like The Right Stuff. His good looks did not

distract him from challenging projects. In Voyager he plays a man

who begins an affair with a younger woman that his ex-wife reveals the

woman is in fact his daughter. Like Oedipus, he has his moment of

recognition. That is your child, not ours. Is this true? One word after

20 years, one stupid words divided us? Exactly. And by the way, it is

21 years. Why do you get figures wrong? It is interesting that you

are the man of science, the man of mathematics, who cannot add nine

months to one year. I am going to see my daughter. Being an actor

really informs your writing. You are looking at it from the inside out.

That is where my first started writing plays, and I realised that

the intuitive knowledge that you have as an actor certainly informs

you as a writer. In so much of your writing there is a male character

trapped in themselves, seemingly unable to change their fate. I very

much believe that things are written. Things are predestined.

There are certain aspects of your being, one's being, of one's getting

on with it, that you cannot help. You can't help who you, you know? It

is an idea that Sam Shepard explored in his screenplay for the

award-winning Paris Texas. And he took part in a special screening

during his stay in Derry. That character of Travis, there is a man

trapped, seemingly unable to change his fate. I am very interested in

trauma. What happens when the whole being is traumatised? What happens

in this state when you cannot speak any more? That is his character.

Would you mind telling me where you disappeared two for the last four

years? Have you seen Jane or talked to her? People keep PDAing him,

chiding him, like they are trying to draw something out of him. But all

the time he knows what his trauma is, he just can't speak. There is an

incredible scene in the film when he is leaving a telephone message for

his son. He is trying to avoid the trauma. It is all denial, all of it.

The biggest thing I hoped for can't come true. I know that now. You

belong together with your mother. Why are you drawn towards the

writing of male characters who are trapped and seemingly unable to

change their fate? God, I don't know. It is part of my background, I

guess. The way I grew up. The witnessing of all the males in my

family. There was this thrust of Eisenhowers and this whole kind of

it is a brand-new world and everyone wants a refrigerator and a

television, and you have to be... You know, positive. But all I around

me was negativity. -- all I could see. Have you been in rehearsals?

Yes, continuously adding and subtracting and driving the actors

crazy. We have a tremendous cast. Really fantastic. And mainly an

Irish cast as well. They are all Northern Irish. Mumbo jumbo. Bones.

Blood. Dreams and guts hanging from clotheslines. I know his game, your

uncle. I have seen what he does, how he does it.

It was him, wasn't it? You shouldn't believe such wild superstition.

That's my ideal, really, that we could do theatre that is highly

achieved as in America or London, so we don't feel in the shadow of a

bigger, next-door culture. Murder? Is that what he told to? Murder and

rape? That's not our fate. We will see what comes of this. As

an actor, I have long ago stopped reading reviews. But then, as

management, I have two. I don't want to, but I will, and then I will

probably have murder in my heart! You're sounding like Oedipus! You're

channelling your inner Oedipus! I went to see good vibrations, and

for the first 20 minutes I didn't know why somebody had made a film

about somebody who owned a record shop. But it is about the redemptive

power of art. It was great to see a Northern Ireland film with a huge

idea in the middle of it. My highlight was seeing Melissa

Hamilton at the City of Culture. It was mesmerising. She has recently

been appointed soloist, but the sea, in such close quarters, such talent

with three other dancers, was just amazing for me. One of my highlights

for the year was the big weekend by the BBC, it was great to have

national artists from across the globe here in our city. Particularly

for the teenagers and young people. But also, the city looked fantastic.

Seeing that broadcast across the world and we were so proud of that.

In July this year, half way through the UK City of Culture we canvassed

opinion from the Editors of the city's two leading newspapers - The

Derry Journal's Martin McGinley and the Londonderry Sentinel's William

Allen. Here's what they had to say back then. There is no doubt things

are happening but it is important not to carried away and ignore some

important issues. The City of Culture it programme has been

important. But they intentions. If we hadn't made the issues of under

resourcing public, I wonder if the council would have agreed to

underwrite the project. There are complaints about the difficulty of

getting private sector sponsorship because there is no brand. How can

the first ever UK City of Culture not be a saleable brand? There is

the direct and infrastructure, there are good news stories. We have city

tours, reporting 30% increase in their business, and the best ever

month for Hotel occupancy in May. Culture year is not a panacea, we

still have 6000 people on benefits. We need the expanding university,

the motorway, the jobs. But what we have is confident that things can

happen. That confidence will be a big part of City of Culture's legacy

but their legacy will have to be worked out and that is where the

attention is turning to now. That's what you thought back in July, what

do you think now? I'm still upbeat about how the year has gone. Since

then, we have at the Fleadh, which was spectacular. Seeing Derry at its

best, welcoming thousands of people from all over the world, really.

Does the positivity continue for you? The things that Martin has

mentioned. The Fleadh also. But being negative, and we have to look

at it from all sides, it has been fantastic, but I don't think just

saying that there is any good. I don't think the economic aspect has

been that well thought out. I think they should have been some emphasis

on regeneration. But in terms of regeneration, the city has never

looked better? Physically, it looks fantastic but you walk along when

you see so many empty shops. It's true, there is an issue of

confidence, and how the city is positioned for future growth. There

was a study which shows that Derry is the top ten of cities that are

poised for growth. There were 600,000 visitors, that has been

positive, the Chamber of Commerce is saying that businesses are starting

to feel the enough it. The important thing is to keep the momentum. But

that will need money. It will, one of the things that had supported me

-- disappointed me has been the lack of rabid sector investment. Where

could that private sector investment have gone? There has been debate

around the fact it could have been bought for much cheaper then it

ended up being rented for. People will look at that and think, ?6

million, would you have done something with that? There will be

questions about whether we should have continued with it. And the

private sector, people didn't feel the confidence at this stage to

operate something of that size. You were exercised about the

organisational difficulties. Are you still worried, with the recent

public spat between the culture company and the town clerk of Derry

City Council? If we couldn't pull together this year, that suggests to

me we have major problems in developing the legacy of it. We

already know whether people will be kept on or not, we also have the

Council developing its legacy and now we have the culture minister

announcing a legacy project. So again, we are dividing. Is that

quite muddled thinking? My view is it is all a lot of noise, it's all a

lot of noise, it's all a bit of a people giving out, but when you

think about it, there were three main bodies that had a mainstay in

what was happening, the culture Company, the City Council which was

charged in making sure the money was spent and then you have a storm

want. A lot of people have a lot at stake. Everyone is looking after

their own area. If you put artistic people and bureaucrats into apart

and put fresh on it you will get a pop. There is still concern that in

January, the venue is going to come down and the Turner prize, the big

circus, will leave town and those holdings will become, essentially,

offices. It can't be allowed to happen, you have spent so much on a

gallery. The idea you would turn over an international standard

gallery into basically offices, instead of developing it as a

gallery of significance in a regional setting, so it would be

another attraction for the city and would be something that would be

remembered, this started in 2013. Willie Doherty said if it closes

down, it sent out a message to the city and the world that the city

doesn't deserve it. Or it might say that we not cultured enough for it,

and I don't think that's true. Thank you very much.

For me, there is no argument. The highlight was this moment of

redemption for the city of Belfast when Belfast found its voice. We pay

tribute to the unwritten, a man who brought us onto the higher ground --

Van Morrison. That family made it perfect moral -- moment of 2013. It

was before hundreds anniversary of the walls of Derry and it was marked

by a very special event where there were simultaneous performances in

Derry and London. It brought together wall-to-wall music, the LSO

and more importantly, the young people of Derry and London, making

music together. When I was 15 I studied the pop Art movement in

school, and to be able to experience the art of an icon like anti-war

hole in Belfast was remarkable. -- and the war hole. To see the posters

I have previously seen in textbooks, in real life, it was a real

experience for me. Jazz pianist Neil Cowley is the UK's Jazz Musician of

the Year and has appeared on albums by the likes of Rihanna, Emilie

Sande and Adele's global hit, 21. This year he has also been the UK

City of Culture's Musician-in-Residence. For his

closing concert he has created a brand new Derry-inspired work, The

Eighth Gate. It's a beautifully warm place and

has completely got into my heart and soul. This is much more of a

journey, it's a piece with a melody that seemingly never repeats itself

and it reflects the experience of the year that we have had here.

There is a pita for couples feel to the place, it's deeply historic, and

there is a great deal of history coming through its planes and a

great deal of pride. The gates are a beautifully symbolic thing, so the

eighth gate now is really just my gift back to say, thank you, you

changed me. My year as a musician in residence

has been totally unexpected gift. It started out as a job then it came a

vocation. And then I realised it was a complete gift, it was a present to

me. I almost feel naughty about the fact that I got so much from it. --

feel guilty. The music promises to change throughout the year, but it's

effectively to give the youth of the city and long lasting legacy and

give them the opportunity to be involved with music. It is born

great fruit. Almost from day one, I was involved and I ended up going to

community centres, schools, workshops. The success of music is

down to the fact there was this lifeblood of music running through

every generation. When I wrote the piece, it became

less about this city and its architecture, it became about

people. I think every bar I have written has been a way of saying,

thank you so much, for the way you have taken me in. And I want

everyone to know, outside the border town, if you like, what an amazing,

vibrant, intelligent place this is. And I hope that for my small part, I

have helped in putting that out there.

My cultural harlot was a political dance piece, I saw it up in Derry,

it was a large-scale piece, I really exciting large-scale piece, with

relentless energy. They had a wall of live sound and accompanying, the

most beautiful, exquisite, thought-provoking dance. A personal

highlight for me at the Festival was the production of Belfast by

moonlight. It would together several classical and contemporary theatre

styles, with echoes of a Greek chorus, and wonderful original music

by Neil Martin. Well, that's it from The Arts Show

for 2013. Join me live on Twitter straight after the show. You can

also keep up to date with arts and culture on BBC Radio Ulster's Arts

Extra every weeknight at 6.30pm. And visit our website for an exclusive

interview with Belfast-born actress, Patricia Quinn, Magenta in The Rocky

Horror Picture Show which is celebrating its 40th anniversary.

The Arts Show is back in January for a brand new series. Until then have

a great Christmas and a Happy New Year. Goodnight.