Abstract
This chapter examines L.O.V.E, a stage performance devised in response to Shakespeare’s Sonnets by a Welsh experimental theatre company established in 1987, the Swansea-based Volcano. This widely discussed and globally showcased, award-winning production was first made in 1992, revived in 2003 for a tour of the Caucasus, and recreated with a new ensemble of performers in 2012 (in celebration of the company’s 25th anniversary), also leading to a 2013 offshoot entitled Women in L.O.V.E. As a significant British example of physical theatre—a mode of theatre-making that uses the movement of bodies as a key part of the aesthetics—the original production of L.O.V.E. was directed and choreographed by physical theatre and dance practitioner Nigel Charnock (a founding member of acclaimed physical theatre company DV8). The dynamic and passionate rejuvenation of the Sonnets was composed for three performers. At the centre of the love triangle in this narrative dramatization of the Sonnets is a young lover, who makes both the Poet figure and the Dark Lady jealous. L.O.V.E. was a highly physicalized and visualised dramatisation of Shakespeare’s Sonnets, one that “harnessed the wonderful words of Shakespeare to a breakneck physicality”, using “physical and emotional extremism” in performance, against an “anarchic” and “irreverent” backdrop (Davies 2012). The present chapter explores the production with the aid of Peter Brook’s insights into working with classics, Antonin Artaud’s vision of radical theatre, and Eugenio Barba’s conceptualisation of dramaturgy for physical theatre. The perspective is broadly intertextual and contextual, also highlighting points of connection with Shared Experience’s 1991 performance inspired by the Sonnets, Sweet Sessions.
The quotation in the title is from Paul Davies, “Nigel Charnock, 1960-2012” (2012) [accessed via Volcano archive].
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Notes
- 1.
I spoke at length to Paul Davies, co-creator of and performer in the original production, who also performed in the Caucasian tour and directed the 2012 remake. He is the current Artistic Director of Volcano. I am very thankful to him as well as to Claudine Conway, the company’s Executive Producer, who helped me access the relevant archival material.
- 2.
DV8 Physical Theatre was to a great extent responsible for initiating the widespread adoption of the term “physical theatre” within the profession (Murray and Keefe 2016, 18) after co-founders Lloyd Newson and Nigel Charnock gave the company this name in 1986.
- 3.
I cite both magazine/newspaper reviews and blogs in the chapter if they appear suitable. The dividing line between these is to some extent blurred today and the critical quality of a blog is often not behind the standard of a newspaper, magazine or journal review. See for instance Radosavljević for a robust defense of theatre blogs.
- 4.
Volcano. (2012a). “Notes for Box Office and Marketing” [accessed via Volcano archive].
- 5.
Davies (2021) is conscious of Volcano potentially having influenced Tic Toc Theatre Company in Coventry as well as Boilerhouse but does not think that there were companies who would have worked in a similar way at the time for Volcano to look up to.
- 6.
It is perhaps ironic that Nancy Meckler is mentioned as an important practitioner of “US-inspired style ‘physical theatre’” in Physical Theatres: A Critical Introduction (Murray and Keefe 2016, 42), which makes interesting reading in the light of Volcano’s concern with the Sweet Sessions performance coming across as too bookish.
- 7.
BBC Wales, The Slate: Volcano.
- 8.
See website. https://volcanotheatre.wales/timeline/. Accessed on 11 February 2022.
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Minier, M. (2023). “Not […] for the Faint Hearted”: Volcano Theatre’s L.O.V.E. as a Physical Theatre Adaptation of Shakespeare’s Sonnets. In: Kingsley-Smith, J., Rampone Jr., W.R. (eds) Shakespeare’s Global Sonnets. Global Shakespeares. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-09472-9_12
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