Rhona Ezuma talks to Guy Jones, director of No Wonder at the Library Theatre
New play No wonder, which lyrically interweaves the monologues of a mother and a son, focuses on how two drastically different individuals deal with the shared experience of potentially losing a loved one. Having emerged from humble beginnings at last year’s University of Manchester drama festival, No Wonder went on to successful runs as part of this year’s National Student Drama Festival and Manchester’s 24:7 theatre festival in the summer. This January it is being given its third breath of life as part of Manchester’s Library Theatre Re:Play series. Student Direct caught up with director (and Manchester graduate) Guy Jones to talk about how the pay has developed from its first showing at the University’s Martin Harris Centre.
As a director, can you summarise about what the play is about?
It started off as a short story by Claire Urwin. We turned it into a couple of monologues about a man who falls from the sixth floor and ends up in a coma. His son is talking to a child psychologist and his wife is talking to him from his bedside recalling the past, so it’s about the memory. It’s also about blame because there are various reasons for which the characters think they are to blame, and it’s based on fairytale so it’s about whether or not there is magic.
This is the third time you’ve run No Wonder, is the experience the same every time you run it?
Not at all, we’ve done it with various combinations of cast and that always gives you different directions. As a director that gives you a chance to peel off the different layers and look into different angles. We’ve got quite an extreme cast dynamic going on at the moment. One of the actors, Edward Franklin, has been in since the first production but this time round we got a lady, Virginia Barratt, who is closer to the age of the mother Alison.
The Library Theatre is a very big space do you think that might pose any challenges?
Well, it’s the biggest stage we’ve performed it on so hopefully it won’t be intimidating. One of the ways we’re dealing with that is that we are working with a designer, Jamie turner, who is going to broaden the aesthetic of the set. We are going to create the hospital on stage and develop a lot more into our visual side.
You talked about a different audience, what type of audience are you expecting this time round?
Well it started off as a student production so it was mainly seen by students. Some of the themes the play deals with are very mature. It will be lovely to see how an audience of different ages will relate to it.
You were working with Ben Osbourne on a score, is that something new that has emerged from working with the Library Theatre?
We did work with music before but it was quite simple, we worked with a band called CoCo Roses. In the past I’ve worked with composers on original music and I think that’s a very exciting thing to do, especially for new writing. Music is always a very effective way of reflecting the themes of the piece and we are working with Ben to cover the transitions of time. We want to have more instrumental music to give it a more distinctive style and to evoke the magical, fairytale aspect of it, which should really work well with Claire’s symbolic way of writing.
No Wonder is on at the Library Theatre January 26-28, 2010
For tickets call (0161) 236 7110
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