A TALE OF TWO CITIES
Programme
Welcome
I think the reason that a Christmas Carol is the most often adapted Dickens story is because it is short. Coming in at an average of 110 pages to A Tale of Two Cities’ 340. If we had a time machine I would send my future self back to discuss with my past self the value of brevity when choosing a story to stage. And while I was there I would tell him that Kafkaesque post-brexit visa negotiations and Covid would make the already short rehearsal period feel like one of those ‘lets make a play in 24 hours’ nightmares and that if he had any hidden talents he hadn’t told me about that could be quickly monetised now was the moment to share.
I would then get back in that time machine and travel back to 1793 to see if the French Revolution was anything like Charles Dickens described it. I think probably it wasn’t. But then the connection between history and story is not always one of faithful representation. My Father said that he never really got into novels because why would you want to read made up stories when there was so much amazing history to read about. I took the opposite view and couldn’t understand why you would want to read about things that actually happened when all these amazing novelists had taken the time to shape and craft reality into a far more streamlined powerful narrative.
It was a difference of opinion that I realise now is not as polarised as it appeared. History and story are just different points on a continuum that moves between the mess of life at one end and the condensed perfection of a haiku at the other. Art is condensed life. And we all need is different amounts of condensing to allow us to make sense of things. My Father was happy to include the surplus characters and tangential narratives that history likes to include and I was more interested in moving further down the line of compression towards the narrative arc of the novel.
Thomas Carlyle compressed the events of the French Revolution into his straightforwardly titled book ‘The French Revolution, A History’. Dickens then turned that book into his novel ‘A Tale of Two Cities’. And what you are about to watch is a squashing of Dickens’ 12 hour novel into a 90 minute stage show. All I can say is it seemed like a good idea at the time.
Until I can reduce life to a haiku I will stop at the theatre version because for me theatre is the perfect reducing machine. Even when it makes no sense it is a place that allows me to make sense of the world. It is what I love about it. It applies pressure. As anyone who has stood on a stage knows there is nothing like the unique pressure of an audience’s attention. It compresses time; it is a place where pages of description become unnecessary as soon as someone walks on stage, a place where years of life could be shown in a single gesture. But of course in order for that machine to work the audience have to be in the room.
So really this is a long way round to say thank you for being here tonight. A while ago we would have said that lightly - almost in passing - but in these times we really mean it. Thank you for being here. Without you we are just a group of strange people doing weird things in an empty room, with you we are creators.
We hope you enjoy the show - if you do please consider Donating some of your hard earned money or joining our Friends Scheme so we can keep doing this kind of thing, and if you don’t please consider donating some of your heard earned money so we can do better next time. Thank you.
I have lots of other people to thank but you can go now unless you are one of the people listed below in which case stay…
Thank you to Anna Finkel , Anna-Kay Gayle, Bob Lockyer, Chris Akrill, Christina Elliott, Claire Verlet, Ed Collier, Eddie Nixon, Faye Stoeser, Gavin Stride, Harriet Lissauer, Hattie Gregory, Hilary Lane, Jackie Shemesh , Jo Blake, Julia Carruthers , Karen Petersen , Laura Caldow, Linda Glenn, Luke Murphy , National Theatre Studio, Merry Holden, Mike & Caroline Howes , Phil Hulford, Rita Kalnejais, Shanelle Clemenson, Theo Inart , The Leche Trust, The Lost Dog Board, The Queen Mary University Writing Group, The Residents of Laughton Lodge, Sarah Weal.
And a personal thank you from me to the Lost Dog team, the Tale of Two Cities creative collaborators, to our co-producers and benefactors, to my family, especially Pip, and finally to the cast. Because I get to write in the programme it seems like I am taking credit for this show but I’m not - without your generosity, creativity and talent there would be nothing of any value to see here.
Ben Duke
February 2022
We would like to dedicate this show to Hjorvar Rognvaldsson. Hjorvar worked as the sound designer on this project and he died suddenly and unexpectedly just before our premiere. He was open hearted, kind, somehow immediately familiar in the best way, talented, drily funny but as anyone who had the pleasure of meeting him will testify he does not fit easily into a few words. He was so inspiringly and comfortably his own person and it is impossible to believe we will not have the privilege of sharing his company any more.
About the Show
If you’ve never read Charles Dickens’ novel of revolution and excessive gestures of love, then this is the show for you. If you have read it, this might also be the show for you, depending on how well you remember it.
Lucie Manette and her aristocratic husband escaped Paris at the height of the French Revolution. It was a daring and unlikely escape that traumatised her young daughter, also called Lucie. Now that Lucie the younger is older, she wants some answers from her tight-lipped mother as to what exactly happened. In order to get those answers Lucie is making a documentary, bringing her family together to restage the events that she was too young to remember, in order to finally confront the past. But what they have to say is not what Lucie wants to hear.
From the creators of Paradise Lost (lies unopened beside me) and Juliet & Romeo, comes a re-staging of one of the bestselling novels of all time (allegedly). Featuring live camera work on-stage, and Lost Dog’s acclaimed blend of contemporary dance and theatre, rediscover Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities from a whole new perspective.
This is Lost Dog’s nearly unrecognisable re-imagining of a classic.
Credits
CAST:
Hannes Langolf, John Kendall, Nina-Morgane Madelaine, Temitope Ajose-Cutting, Valentina Formenti
CREATIVE TEAM:
Devised by Ben Duke and the Company
Director: Ben Duke
Creative Advisor, Associate Director: Pip Duke
Designer: Amber Vandenhoeck
Lighting Designer: Katy Morison
Projection Designer: Will Duke
Projection Design Associate: Hayley Egan
Sound Designer: Hjorvar Rognvaldsson
Videographer: Idris Ellis
Dramaturg: Raquel Meseguer Zafe
PRODUCTION & PRODUCING TEAM
Production Manager: Dave Sherman
Technical Stage Manager: Seth Rook-Williams
Stage Manager: Laura Overton Harvey
Touring Technician: Mason Pretorius
Project Producer: Emily Gorrod-Smith
Assistant Producer: Emma Evans
Engagement Producer: Joanne Skapinker
Executive Producer: Daisy Drury
Audio Description: Raquel Meseguer & Laura Dannequin
BSL Interpreter: Clare Edwards
A Tale of Two Cities is co-produced by Lost Dog, The Place and Warwick Arts Centre with funding from Arts Council England; Commissioned by Théâtre de la Ville, Paris; and supported by Worthing Theatres, The Point, Eastleigh, The Leche Trust and Mike & Caroline Howes.
Lost Dog is supported by Farnham Maltings.
Music List:
Bellini - Casta Diva
Binker Golding & Moses Boyd - The Birth of Light
Dustin O’Halloran & Adam Wiltzie - Desires Are Already Memories
Bach - Book I Prelude & Fugue no.8 in E-Flat
Vivaldi - Sposa son disprezzata
Nancy Sinatra - Bang Bang (My Baby shot me down)
Purcell - O Solitude
Corinna Repp - Release Me
Lankum/Traditional - What Will We Do When We Have No Money (sung live)
Trailers & Videos
Press
From the Blog
With Thanks
A Tale of Two Cities could not have happened without the support, encouragement and enthusiasm of so many people.
Thank you to Anna Finkel , Anna-Kay Gayle, Bob Lockyer, Camilla Greenwell, Chris Akrill, Christina Elliott, Claire Verlet, Ed Collier, Eddie Nixon, Faye Stoeser, Gavin Stride, Harriet Lissauer, Hattie Gregory, Hilary Lane, Jackie Shemesh , Jo Blake, Julia Carruthers , Karen Petersen , Laura Caldow, Linda Glenn, Luke Murphy , National Theatre Studio, Merry Holden, Mike & Caroline Howes , Phil Hulford, Rita Kalnejais, Shanelle Clemenson, Theo Inart , The Leche Trust, The Lost Dog Board, The Queen Mary University Writing Group, The Residents of Laughton Lodge, Sarah Weal.