The one and only Sam MG...
As a man who identifies as a Socialist, I’ve always been very
sympathetic to miners and their plights over the last 30/40 years. Whilst I
could, and almost always do, spew anti-Thatcher rhetoric for hours on end, I’ve
decided that the sanctity of this blog would instead profit from what Black
Company actually did at the Miners Memorial Service on October 8th,
and nothing to do with how privatizing and ultimately ending Britain’s main and
highly profitable export industries means that growth won’t ever go above 2.5%
in my lifetime!
Since (I
believe) April, Black Company have been devising, writing, rehearsing and
performing ‘Remember the Oaks’, an original piece dedicated to those who were
involved in the tragedy at the Oaks Colliery in Barnsley, the worst mining
disaster to have ever taken place on English soil, and the second worst on
British land after the horrors of the Senghenydd Colliery Disaster in Wales.
The piece focused on the families of those affected by the disaster, and how as
time passes on – in its unstoppable fashion – it’s important to never forget
your history and to never take anything for granted. Money generated from our
performances were donated to those campaigning for a statue to commemorate the
disaster; a beautiful statue, waiting to be cast in bronze, of a mother and her
child rushing to the disaster only moments after it has happened. After a
couple of very impressive performances at The Lamproom Theatre in Barnsley and
at the HQ of the National Union of Mineworkers, we were asked to do a final
(well, is anything ever final?) performance at the Miners Memorial Service at
Wakefield Cathedral.
We spent
weeks trimming the performance down, taking it from an hour long story to a
shorter piece of information about disasters in the Yorkshire area; mainly The
Oaks and Lofthouse. Lines were spread equally and power put into all of them,
everyone in the Cathedral united in the singular cause of memory for what all
of those workers did for us, for their families, for themselves.
Having never
performed in a Cathedral before myself, having to adapt to the space – as
opposed to that of a theatre – was a welcome challenge. We spent around an hour
making changes before the Service, and ultimately is was a task that bettered
me as a performer for it. They’re always spacious and echo’s ring around, so
projection was something I made a mental note to focus on throughout the piece.
It’s fun seeing what an unusual performance space can teach you as an actor.
Performing
in dedication of the Miners has been something I’ve revelled in. Not only do
they deserve everything we can do, but they deserve us to put everything into
it as well; something Black Company did with unrivalled will.
But, as
Remember the Oaks taught us, time continues to move in its own man-made and
surreal fashion, and merely 4 days after, we began to devise our Christmas
show; The Snow Princess.
Now, of
course I could explain The Snow Princess to you in its entirety, detailing the
physical pieces we created on Thursday night and their metaphorical, symbolic
and abstract meanings; but of course, why would I deny you the pleasure of
doing that yourself on the 7th and 8th of December, only
at the Phoenix Theatre in Castleford?
On a
final note, National Theatre Connections has begun to come back into my life
this week. Not that you care, but I couldn’t make the auditions next Saturday,
and so instead auditioned on Friday night. Last year, Connections was an
experience that taught me the most as an actor that I have ever learnt over the
duration of a show. With a cast of some of my best friends I enjoyed the
process an insurmountable sum; and I cannot wait to get back into it this year.
Whilst
this year’s play – Three – takes on
a radically different tone to Eclipse,
would I be able to call myself an actor if I couldn’t say this was something I
didn’t welcome into my art?
So I
realise this blog has talked about mainly everything and anything, but if I
could leave it on any note, it would be this; acting is an unmatchable art
form, pay money to see us perform, and Thatcher was the devil.
Sam
Mandi-Ghomi
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