Basingstoke ObserverWHAT are little girls made of?
They are made of the forest floor, the blood of the moon cycle, the fluttering of wings and the turning of keys. They are made of sweat, howling notes and desire. They are made of night-scented stock – heady and sweet, the lily and the rose, the knife and the rope.
They are made of all the tales our mothers told us and all the ones they didn’t dare.
Award-winning Proteus present Angela Carter’s collection of short stories The Bloody Chamber, an erotic, heady and humour-infused feminist re-telling of some of the most famous folk and fairy tales in western culture, at The Haymarket on Wednesday 20 and Thursday 21 April.
These dark fantasies are performed by an all-female cast using acro and aerial circus, physical theatre, gothic design and a haunting soundscape.
The Bloody Chamber is a visually decadent and surprisingly funny reimagining of the stories our mothers told us. And all the ones they didn’t dare.
Director Mary Swan uses circus as a physical vocabulary to translate the fantastical and lyrical fever-dream style of Angela Carter’s macabre fairy tales to the stage.
Mary shared: “Like so many female writers Angela Carter has long been overlooked in the canon of great British literature, but happily this is finally beginning to change. Using circus as the chief physical language of the piece enables us to create the surreal, Escher-type worlds of the castle in The Bloody Chamber, the landscapes of Wolf-Alice and the nightmarish home of the vampire in The Lady of the House of Love. Her work is sadly more relevant now than ever; the advice contained in the tales to young women is all too reminiscent of the list published by the Metropolitan Police in 2020 following the murder of Sarah Everard. The Reclaim the Night movement started in the late 1970s when Carter was writing The Bloody Chamber, prompted by outrage at the murder of women on Britain’s streets, and that we are still marching in 2022 is a depressing validation of all the warnings contained within these tales.”
Proteus Theatre worked with leading figures in the circus industry to choreograph the piece including Mimbre’s Silvia Fratelli, Charlotte Mooney from Ockham’s Razor and Tamzen Moulding, the Artistic Director of Inverted Theatre. The Bloody Chamber also features an original soundtrack with musical direction, arrangements and sound design by Max Reinhardt (BBC Radio 3 Late Junction) and original composition by Paul Wild who worked with Proteus on Macbeth.
Tickets for The Bloody Chamber are priced at £20; under 25s £14 (includes £4 booking fee), The performance is suitable for ages 12 and over. Contact the Anvil Arts box office on 01256 844244 or visit anvilarts.org.uk.
