∙ James and the Giant Peach ∙ ∙ Sweeney Todd ∙ ∙ Wild ∙ ∙ Cindirella ∙

Jan. 2013 Issue no 1

James and The Giant Peachpage 4

Sweeney Toddpage 6

WILDpage 12

Interview with Teifi EMERALDpage 14

Interview with Rob FISHERpage 17

Cindirellapage 22

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4CO NTE NT

Layout design by GUNCE KOZAL

A s a group of three we tried to do our best to create this magazine. Under the Visual Communication department of Birmingham Institute of Art and Design (BIAD) we have given an assessment which was this maga-

zine project. We chose our magazine to look over a specific subject which is Theatre in and around Bir-mingham.

The name 'Coulisse' means backstage where actors and actresses get ready for the stage by chang-ing their costumes and putting make-up on. To lobbying is an indispensable activity of backstage. It is com-menting on the performance among the mouths of the cast when everyone leaves the atmosphere, therefore it is ''gossiping'' about the play in a way. We consider our magazine as the very definition of coulisse which it states the term lobbying as I mention above. We do lobbying not in a bad manner but in a positively and enjoyable way so that we can inform people about the theatre in Birmingham and attract their attentions to get more socialized with it.

While working on this project, it was a great chance to be able to use the facilities provided by BIAD and with the supervision of our tutors from the dif-ferent disciplines of art and design, we could develop our ideas and works in each step of our magazine pro-ject. It was a productive one semester which we feel that we could find a chance to take a step into these different disciplines and understandings of arts and design world at the end of it. With the aim of delivering new informations to our audience, we also have learned different informations,places and experimented differ-ent atmospheres as well. I hope our work will be liked with the consideration that the three girls who created this magazine were all first year student so they are in the beginner level in this field.

Hope you will enjoy while reading Coulisse Birmingham. Best Regards, Gunce KOZAL

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JAMES giant AND T

HE

peachBirmingham Stage Company present the Roald Dahl classic

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T he lights dim and the audience made up vastly of primary school children with teachers and parents are told

to ''quieten down.'' Of course they don't all listen however as soon as two of the characters of the play walk through the audience towards the stage, greeting chil-dren as they pass the kids are already enticed. So, the story be-gins, from the ending, explained by the same two characters of ''camera man'' and ''reporter'' the curtain opens to show James and his insect friends living famously in New York in the stone of a peach. The cast engages with the children, asking them if they'd like to know how they ended up in New York adding a favoured pantomime experience. The story then goes back to the start, narrated in some parts by the ''Earth Worm'' in the corner of the stage, who also provides music for the play using the drum set and mouth organ. The props on the stage, such as the growing peach which was presented as a balloon being pumped up to show it growing quickly and eventually popping erupted a huge laughter from the audience. The interactive moments in the play really make it enjoy-able to watch. At one point in the play a giant orange balloon is thrown into the audience and thrown back and forth between the children, eventually the chil-dren are instructed by ''James'' to throw it back to him which they obediently do. Another interest-ing part of the performance was how child friendly it was without being boring, the tragic tale of how James' parents died was told through puppets when their ''bones were crushed by the rhino''

the sound of bubble-wrap being popped was used to portray this. Also, a lot of glow-in-the-dark quirks were used which were exciting to watch, as well as a smoke machine which made it all the more fun and kept the chil-dren entertained. Tom Gillies plays the part of James exceptionally with the perfect amount of naivety and wonder. His emotions were clear and easy to understand without being exaggerated. However the characters of Aunts Spud and Spiker were exaggerated with

their big hair, frilly clothes due to them being comedic charac-ters, and instantly the audience were laughing as soon as they appeared on stage. The movie, theatre shows, and of course the original Roald Dahl book. James and The Giant peach has been done many a time, however the characters and crew really made this play pleasant to watch for the whole family.

Author: Iram BiPhotography: Ian Tilton

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As the team of Coulisse Birming-ham we have seen a wonderful visual show at AE Harris Venue in the recent months. AE Harris Fac-tory is a foundation which is runned by Stan's Cafe and supports live performances especially theatre. Stan's Cafe formed by a group of artists who came from the differ-ent branches of art and their aim is “to make things happen” . The venue located in Jewellery Quar-ter and really close to city centre.

Sweeney ToddThe Demon Barber of Fleet Street

BY Atomicus Production

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The live performance we have watched perhaps should be the one most of us came across with the movie version of it. The play was Sweeney Todd (The

Demon Barber of Fleet Street). The subject matter is about Benjamin Barker and his obsessively gutsy accomplice Mrs. Lovett. Benjamin Barker has oppressive imprisoned and made an oath to take revenge because of the heavy results of the incidents happened to his daughter and wife. Barker, personate as Sweeney Todd and turns back to the barber shop of him which is above Mrs. Lovett's bakery. The aim is to keep an eye on Judge Turpin who has sent Barker away with an aspersion of fake offense in order to steale his wife Lucy and their daughter. Meanwhile, when Adolfo Pirelli who is splendiferous Italian barber as an ad-versary to Barker, threaten him in or-der to clarify Barker's identity Barker kills him by carving his gullet with the razor. While he wasn't know what to do with the dead body, Mrs. Lovett take this crisis as an opportunity to rescue her business which is not thriving well and suggests to fill her pies with dead human meat! Sweeney realises that Judge sets his eyes on Johanna, who is Sweeney's daughter in her juvenile age. Johanna is under Judge's guardi-anship. Johanna has a life locked up in her room and one day she got noticed by young sailor Anthony who rescued Sweeney from the sea. Johanna's cra-zy lover Anthony swears to rescue and marry with her. Soon Mrs. Lovett's pies build up a reputation in London and sales are excessively increase. Mrs. Lovett imagines to rise high in esteem, marry with Sweeney and live near a seashore with him. Also she will adopt Toby who was the former assistant of Adolfo Pirelli but on the other hand there is nothing on Sweeney's mind ex-cept revenge even if he is going to in-jure some others as well.

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“”

No! Not Barker. That man is dead. It’s Todd, now. Sweeney Todd. And he shall have his revenge..

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The play which has directed and played a key role by Alex Parker was excellent as like as the movie and for me there is nothing can supersede experimenting the taste of live per-formance. The provided atmosphere was cold, dark and creepy. While we were going ahead step by step to our seats, the actresses had already started to their performances with the accompaniment of that amazing orchestra be-hind the curtains. Their costumes and the can-dles they hold visually captured attention from the start. I could easily understand that the crew thought every single detail because of that fold-ed blankets on the seats and after a while I really needed to cover myself with a blanket during the play. Apparently, it has been really worked hard on stage setting which made us to per-ceive easily the sense of barber shop and the bakery shop of Fleet Street. Especially, the ma-chining operation of barber chair was perfect-ly designed and presented. There were some ironic details on the stage setting which are not existing in the movie. The masonic logo on the barber chair which is designed with razor and scissors patterns can be an example of one of these. The devastating rendition and the per-

fect voices of actors and actresses made us to watch the play breathless. The accordance of cast and orchestra was absolute and in my estimation, there was a great portion of that crowded, strong orchestra on the success of the play. The scenes played were virtually more strong and effective on the audience with the companionship of the orchestra.This is unquestionable that each of the actors and actresses have trained and perfect voices but the one most affected me which still has the echo in my ears was Lauren Morris' voice who played the character Johanna who is under the guardianship of Judge Turpin. Besides, the voice of Alex Parker was really strong and it was vir-tually completing the character Sweeney Todd. To witness and watch a team which has really worked perfectly and constituted a rich result was something which should be absolutely ex-perimented. The play Sweeney Todd presented by Atomicus Production with the contribution of AE Harris Venue has met with us. We render our thanks as the team of Coulisse Birmingham to everyone worked for the play Sweeney Todd which gave us the chance to taste this amazing visual show.

AuthorGunce KOZAL

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PhotographyMonika Mina LANOWY ( page 7 - 10 )Gunce KOZAL( Page 11 )

Make-up Iram BI

CostumeIram BIGunce KOZAL

Models Aleem RiasatCemre DORA

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“ ”Buy Pirelli’s Miracle Elixir...

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wildA Play Written and Played by Teifi EMERALD

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Wonderful world of dreams and imaginat ion , where every-thing constant-

ly surprises.WiLD is an incredible one wom-an show, written and performed by TeifiEmerald. It's depicting a story about life, dreams and magic but despite of its enchanted at-mosphere, it's very similar to the daily life. Audience can imagine themselves in the situation of the character, so it's even more fastinating. And the way in which the actress portrays the character of Teifi makes us like her from the very first minutes of the show. It's about a young wom-an who gets lost in the real-ity of the everyday world and have to face her weaknesses to become who she wishes to be. Her life turns into a fantas-tic journey, filled with intriguing characters and places, where she's got to fight her inner mon-

sters to release herself from their influence. The play show that it always might be difficult, but it also depicts it in a funny way. And humour is the very im-portant element here because there's a lot of it, what's making the play incredibly absorbing. It may sound like a big challenge for a one person but Teifi Emerald empathizes very well with the character she plays and she's able to play two or more characters at the time, not forgetting about the costumes and different styles of performance. There's a mixture of storytelling, dance, puppetry and parody which we're observ-ing throughout the play. All the props and costumes are very well thought-out and it's incred-ibly surprising how good is the way she's using them. The audi-ence was constantly following her, curiously wondering what is going to happen next be-cause each of the scenes was truly enthralling. It's also very entertaining while she's chang-

ing from one character into another, and she's doing it so quickly and smoothly that you are simply watching it with bait-ed breath. Teifi Emerald's talent and artistic perception of things have made this play so unique and beautiful that you want to watch it again to noticeall the little details of this fan-tastic show and to, of course, satisfy your hunger for more of her creations. You'll adore this story, the way it depicts the truth about human nature and how it's mixed with humour and the pinch of magic.

Author: Monika Mina Lanowy

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What do you love most about per-forming?There's this feeling of ''Are you just showing off?'' Because you're in front a audience and it's in re-

lation to people, but I don't think it's just that. You can't reduce your craft to ''Look at me'' It's to do with giving a part of yourself. Just like anything else, if you're making a cake, then you want to give yourself to the whole cake and that's your means of expression. I guess with performing, is to me it feels like the best way of doing it. Why wouldn't you stand in front of people, talk and do things? That's the most complete way of giving. It's something I absolutely love, it's the thing you have to do if you don't do it you miss it. I think it's that kind of thing that you can't live without it, that feeling.

Where do you get your inspiration from? Good art, good though, good writ-ing, anywhere in the world. You take it with you as a part of yourself almost & then it translates into an idea of a play... Ac-tually, I was read-ing about this recently, people in a book, about where does creativity come from and there's this idea that ''oh it comes from , we don't know where it comes from, it's a mystery'' and actually that's a load of rubbish because any fully formed idea, you can break it down to ''I saw that here and I saw that there''

What do you before going on stage?Warming up really well, warming my body and voice up. It just comes down to dealing with nerves, you have to calm down. So I do have things I do, practical things certain voice humming and chant-ing that calms me down.

In Wild you play many different characters, is it difficult to switch between them?No, it's not actually. But you might start off slow-er because your brain's changing, but then you speed up. They're all characters that are right there, you know? It's not like 'oh no, I've got to think, what was mum thinking and what was child thinking' It's quite practical, I just think my voice has to do this dif-ferently.

What inspired you to create the teabag monster?There are a couple of costumes that really inspired me, not of teabag monsters but a kind of style. Its like when you see something and you think ''that's mine, you've made it before me. I should have made that!''

I wanted it to be about pro-crast inat ion and I wanted to look at this idea that we all procrastinate to some degree. It's a really horrible experience when

you're procrastinating and you don't want to be. I see something inherently funny about it, maybe because I've been doing the play for so long. So I wanted the character to embody that.

Is Wild autobiographical?That's not the intention, it's a really complex ques-tion because there's this idea that art works can be autobiographical, you might watch and think ''that's what she really thinks'' but you don't ever know. For example the characters are all very close to me. When I played the child, I wasn't com-pletely like that as a child, children are much more complex, they're not so cartoonish but obviously

TEIFI EMERALDinterview with the actress

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there's a part of me that does feel like that. I don't go around behaving like that all the time, maybe sometimes when I'm grumpy or in the kitchen or be-ing silly. There are so many characters in the play, I did put in a lot of

t h e sort of in-ner characters. Your whole being, how does your body move when you're dancing, that's one iden-tity. How do you move when you're in the office or at home? They're all different parts of you. It's not

a complete representation of me, it could never be that, I think the narrative is a complete repre-sentation of somebody, exploring all the different aspects that they are , somebody whose lost.

When did you realise you wanted to start per-forming?

When I was very little, I wanted to write and I wanted to do pho-

tography, drawing and other art forms. I already had a

natural instinct for per-formance and then

when I was 9 some-one said ''Who

here wants to be an actor?'''and I thought ''I'd like to do that.'' Hap-p y m a k -ing, I think s i n g -ing and d a n c -ing does make you happy. It makes me happy, it

makes lots of people

really happy. So it's partly

this idea that we should all go

round doing it all the time, little hidden

desires. It's really good fun, working for your-

self, any idea you have, you can put it no one's going to say

''well, that's not very practical or the Barbie is going too far'' If you're doing it

yourself you just put anything you want in. I did aim for keeping people on their toes and wanting to surprise people every step of the way.

Interview by Iram BI

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ROB FISHER interview with the Director of WILD

Where did Wild start?

It was the scene ''All the plays I never made'' it was so heart-warming and so honest. Someone revealing their childhood dreams and I thought ''Wow there really is something there; you could use this and start building a show from this.'' That was about two years ago. She actually performed it in my lounge, she dragged me in there and said ''C'mon watch this, what do you think of it?'' I'm nev-er good at telling white lies when I don't like some-thing I say I don't like it. But thankfully I thought it was fantastic.

What sort of approach did you use in the making of Wild?

There's been lots of different ap-proaches actually, we discovered that we work very well together. It's often seen as bad practice however, if the director gets too involved telling the actor how to do it because we were working in a sort of creative partner-ship. There would be times when I would jump off the seat and say ''well what it we did it this way.'' She would like some of my ideas and she would hate some of my ideas. It was good, because she could pick some she liked and incorporate with all her brilliant ideas so sometimes the show evolved that way. Other times there would be a need, the show would be missing something we'd need to move the story from A to B. Teifi would sit in front of the computer, type away for an hour and put some script in front of me. Again maybe I'd like it maybe I wouldn't and we'd make changes, but it has been remarkably collaborative. It's very hard to see where little bits were my ideas and bits that were hers, it all seems to flow quite nicely together.

Where there parts during making Wild, where you didn't know where to go with it?

Yes, I think when you're working in a relatively free way. Just throwing ideas into the pool in the

middle you can come up with many good ideas and not all of them fit together. There are some scenes in the play that we absolutely love, just great ideas that didn't work with the story on a whole. They either didn't add anything to the sto-ry or they made it too complicated or simply too long. It's frustrating when you know they can't all make it into the show. Sometimes your favourite bits get cut and they're sitting in a heap of scripts and they'll get used one day in another show.

Did Wild turn out how you expected it to be?

I think so, I think we mostly share the same vi-sion for the show. I think right from early on I un-derstood what she was trying to achieve what she was trying to say, so then we discovered by talking about the show we share a lot of com-mon influences. For example one off the top of my head would be the film called Labyrinth we both

discovered that we both love that childhood fantasy, that story and the way they use puppets so effec-tively with the live action. We had similar frames of reference that we could draw upon, we were speak-ing the same language essentially.

What has been the most enjoyable part of the whole production?

It changes all the time, I really enjoyed the rehears-al period. The time we get to spend two weeks, all day every day, just working on the show. Throwing ideas around was hugely enjoyable, I thought it was going to be a letdown when it's performed, that it was going to be less exciting but then I find it still lifts me up every time I see it. Yesterday we'd had a very busy day, we were both very tired when we were ready to perform and then the show starts and suddenly I'm in that magical place again. I feel happy again and I remember why I love the show. I love the rehearsing, I love seeing it performed to an audience and then I love little moments in the show that are different. Different audiences re-act in different ways, for example when a bunch of A level students watched it they laughed at the teacher parts cause their teachers were standing right there. However more older audiences didn't, they laughed at the more mature parts like the references to the shipping forecast on radio four.

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It was so heart-warming and so hon-est. Someone reveal-ing their childhood

dreams...

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And finally, what from your perspective is the play about?

I think it's a very personal story, a very honest story about the frustrations of being a perform-er and being a dreamer. Being someone whose head is full of magical worlds and creatures, but has to live in a modern everyday society and has all the fears, anxieties and is repressed in the way we all are. It's the contradiction of those two things, hopefully we explore that in a story that has a beginning and takes you on a journey where you arrive somewhere very different from where you began. That to me is a magical story, to see that transition and see someone achieve what they set out to achieve.

PhotographyMonika Mina LANOWY

Make-up Iram BI Gunce KOZAL

CostumeIram BI

Models Sirin BOLKAN

I n te rv iew by Iram BI

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PhotographyMonika Mina LANOWY

Make-up Iram BI

CostumeIram BI

Model Nina AHMED

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A beautiful princess under a magic spell, a charm which only midnight can break. Her shining blue dress' floating on the warm air and her tiara's sparkling in the moonlight flare. She's got not much time until it stops, so she's quickly rush-

ing to the royal ball. Her tiara's shining in the blurry light when her eyes are blinking, piercing the sky. This is the time when she whispers her wish and the gleaming moon begins to fade. She finally cross the castles gate and steps inside the dancing hall, so big and great she holds her breath, deciding where to go or stay. When the young man waits for her hand, he kisses it lightly with his smooth lips, making her speechless and not sure what to do. She begins to talk about the huge ballroom, he replies with a smile and looks at the clock. The midnight is coming and the time is running out, there must be a way to do it right. She starts to run, she's got no choice. They cannot know she's not who they want. She run so quickly she lost her shoe but it wasn't important as much as the truth. She got lost in the dark, between the trees of the forest, when the charm stopped to work, the magic was gone and she turned into simple girl. Her crown disappeared, the dress didn't sparkle, her face lost its smile and there was no cure for that. But she was still believing, her dream will come true, what suddenly happened when she didn't thought it would.

Even miracles take a little time.

Cindirella

Author: Monika Mina Lanowy

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PhotographyMonika Mina LANOWY

Make-up Iram BI Gunce KOZAL

CostumeIram BIMonika Mina LANOWY

Model Sirin BOLKAN

Author: Monika Mina Lanowy

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