Before starting, let’s take a look at the “Lexi in Lockdown” performance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScgG5F9vcB8
“Beautiful lyrics and poetic, I thought
the music was equally encapsulated.
Well done team Fury, I cannot wait to
see more!”- The critics.
How the performance moved from the stage to Zoom
On the sixteenth of July the Space London and ACE in collaboration with the Fury Theatre displayed the online premier of the unprecedented theater piece “Lexi in Lockdown” and the short film “Right, So Babies: SOS” . The play was supposed to be performed on stage in August 2020 but the Covid19 pandemic forced the artists to reinvent its format in an online version. The show is a flow of poetry and music which uses epic references to argue on current topics such as personal growth and self-validation. The audience is introduced by refined metrics and an innovative way of theater performing to a manifestation of steely female determination. Start of the collaboration The gig was originated by the collaboration between Laura Turner, the writer, the director Elen Benfield and the performer Marina Papadopoulous, the latter two having already collaborated on a common project (but in different setups)in the past, while the entire production has been edited by Josh Brown. The performance “Lexi in Lockdown” is the result of the very first cooperation between the Fury Theatre and the The Space London, as partner of the ‘Space's Locked Down, Looking Up’ an online program launched by the Arts Council England. Laura and Elen got in touch through James Smith, a director with whom they already worked separately. During their meeting, they discuss about the play, sharing their ideas and points of view about the aim of the performance. As Laura Turner admits, “having the conversation about the text we just completely clicked”. Afterwards, Elen involved Marina, in order to add some music as a support to the newly born project.
Plot and topics
The play is inspired by the Greek but worldwide famous myth of Electra. She is one of the protagonists of the Oresteia, a tragic trilogy written by Aeschylus in the fifth century BC. Her fame is linked to the matricide plotted by her and performed by her brother against their mother, Clytemnestra, who killed her husband Agamemnon, after his return from the successful expedition against Troy narrated in Homer’s Iliad, to start a new life with her lover. The heinous homicide and her unconditional love for her father not only inspired the psychoanalytic concept of the ‘Electra Complex’ (which has its male analogous in the ‘Oedipus complex’) but conferred her in the following centuries a vast literary dimension.
Indeed, Electra’s strength of challenging the fatus by setting a new flow of events and establishing her self-validation beyond borders of common sense. Her myth collected a new set of characteristics to confer to tragic protagonists.
“Lexi in Lockdown” canalizes such set through the modern and powerful story of Lexi. A young girl whose music aspiration led her to challenge herself to perform and to get others approval. Her love for the music is as big as her love for the father, who is one of her biggest supporter. The following events recall the Electra myth combined with the insights of Lexi personal growth.
The entire plot is narrated through a delicate but dogged succession of verses whose metrics is supported and incorporated in different soundtracks. The performance is a standalone monologue settled in the performer bedroom and recorded in one continuous take.
“What we were more interested on, was how the places that we are from really form us as individuals. How they form us in terms of personality, that is what Lexi is about: her journey. It is about her personal journey to come to terms with what happened to her but even to really find herself and be able to validate herself.”-Laura Turner, the writer.
How theater can address Covid19 restrictions
Due to the lockdown the artists had to perform the play rehearsal via Zoom and carry out the premiere online. It is clear how the pandemic conditions settled limitations to the stage performance but, according to director Elen Benfield also: “offered an opportunity to create a new artistic format too”. Indeed, by establishing an online version it was necessary to record the gig without undermining its vitality and its stage strength. For this reason, the team took the best from their theater background and switched it into “a new dimension”: the recorded media.
“I am really working through it as well. I think once we had this idea of a Facebook live performance in the way that artists are embracing at the moment (that is so exciting to see that kind of creativity during the lockdown) that was an existing vision but we had practically to make that work”, says Laura Turner, ‘Lexi in Lockdown’s writer.
Despite the significant restrictions, the audience positively received this new way of making live theater by defining the mix of music and words “mesmerizing” and its recording as “effortless”.
Also, the lonely dialogue between the performer and the camera held in her bedroom offered the audience a new intimate dimension where people can get sucked in and forget about the outside world.
Furthermore, “Lexi in Lockdown” online performance represents a starting point to share artists remarks regarding the restrictions and challenges they are facing due to the Covid19 pandemic. Indeed, according to Maddy Corner, author of “Right, So Babies: SOS”: “At first, it is really scary, but actually this opportunity gave us the possibility to create a film when everyone is just online. Also, I think that what we are going through can even be positive. We never have a break from the world. Now we have the time to reset and inspire ourselves. Lastly (…), as hard as it can be, we are so used to technology and social media that we actually do have an advantage”.
“Also, what actually inspired me was that not everyone has access to go to the theater, or some feel like they do not belong to a theater. This situation gave the possibility to just attend online, giving the chance to people to realize that they actually belong to it and that they could enjoy it. This is really powerful, because thorough Shakespeare or ancient Greek literature people can get some time to look at it and enjoy it. This is really exciting because you can connect with everyone that have internet access and so reach more people all over the world.” Admits “So Babies: SOS” performer.
In conclusion, thanks to the success of the online performance “Lexi in lockdown” it appears clear that this peculiar moment of history is not a dead-end for theater. Rather it could represent an opportunity to interrogate the effectiveness of theater practices adopted so far and it is a milestone to establish a new way of operating and connecting with the audience. It forecasts an innovative approach to the theater or general storytelling that is going to leave its mark in the following performance.
“Absolutely beautiful, thank you. Revolutionary strong female writing and female musicality. Lovely the switch from spoken words to music. It was a really powerful piece”- The critics
The Fury Theatre future plans
After having reached such a success with the recalling of ancient Greek literature, “Lexi in Lockdown” the author, Laura Turner, might consider pursuing the relocation of famous literature characters such as in Greek literature and Shakespeare plays in the modern world. Indeed, her inspirational point is to highlights how actually the human being does not change overtime and how emotions, desires and needs remain the same over time and in different geographical locations. “For me and the Fury Theatre going forward, it is going absolutely to be about female stories, and about a kind of reworking and re-imagining them. (Also) taking old less known stories and bring them to life because they have so much passion. We want to take as much as influences from the Greek theater and work on its music and its themes”.
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