Sweet Fanny Adams in Hyperspace Eden

 

 Behind the Scenes [5:26m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

A short film going behind the scenes at the Whitestone Arts Centre.

 

 Constructing a Scene [0:59m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

A short sequence demonstrating the construction of a scene.

The special effects for each scene in Sweet Fanny Adams in Hyperspace Eden were rendered using Shake. This is the same programme used on popular fantasy films such as the Lord of the Rings triology.
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When film-makers want to create a computer generated world, a common choice is to shoot in a blue-screen or green-screen studio. Computer systems such as Shake can replace the colour with any scenery they wish.

A perennial problem with this technique is the need to create a consistent colour that the computer ca identify and replace. This usually involves complex lighting set-ups. However, Reflect Media’s Chromatte fabric provides a clever short-cut. (more…)

Robert Sharp’s recollections of the 2003 performance.

One of my most memorable moments of the 2003 production of “Sweet Fanny Adams in Eden” was also a good example of the unique nature of the text.

Since the play was a non-linear, promenade production, it was of course possible to attend the show on a number of occasions, and watch different scenes. As a member of the production team, I was naturally a ‘regular’ and saw the performance several times during the run.

I attended one showing in the final week of the run. During the “middle section”, where the audience an actors roam the garden, I happened across a scene taking place just outside Mina’s pagoda. Only three audience members were watching the intimate scene when I arrived… and two of them were Muriel Romanes and Judith Adams, director and playwright respectively. They were doubled over in laughter at the performance they were witnessing.

After the scene had finished, and ‘Lily’ (Pauline Lockhart) had careered off the footpath in search of more butterflies, I fell into conversation with Muriel and Judith about the scene.

“I agree it was a funny scene,” I said. “But we are two and a half weeks into a three week show run. Why do you, the creators of the piece, still find it so funny?”

“Ah, you don’t understand,” they explained. “We’ve never seen that scene before.” The actors, Pauline Lockhart and Alexandra Mathie, had recognised early in the rehersal period, just how flexible the text was. They were therefore experimenting with the text, coupling different scenes together, to create something that had surprised and delighted even the playwright.

This brings a whole new meaning to the idea of “developing a character”, a process that does not finish on first night, but continues right throughout the run of a play. It is something that only theatre can achieve, and is encouraged by the creation of a flexible text. When critics and practitioners speak of creating new languages of performance, then perhaps the process developed by the actors of Sweet Fanny Adams in Eden, is one example of what they mean.

In 2002, Stellar Quines Theatre Company commissioned playwright Judith Adams to create a site-specific play for performance at the soon-to-be-opened Scottish Plant Collectors’ Garden on the hillside behind Pitlochry Festival Theatre.
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Welcome to hyperspace! Over the next fourteen weeks, we will be presenting an online ‘publication’ of Judith Adams’ play, Sweet Fanny Adams in Eden. Every weekday, we will publish a scene from the script, and a multimedia realisation of that scene using actors and compter generated imagery.

To introduce you to the project, we recommend you read our essay in three parts:

• Creating The Play - How the play was commissioned, and how it was first performed
• A web of stories - the advantages of the non-linear medium
• The actors, their characters, and the audience - How the play fosters a new approach to live performance

After that, its simple. Read and watch the play as it is published, and learn more about how it was constructed through our short essays, workshop photos and biogrpahies. We hope you have fun.