Attempts on her Life
Previously Frozen.
A composition by Kitty Chesher using digital and analogue sounds for Attempts on her Life (2021). Kitty took inspiration from the title of the closing scene to create a sound work as an audio manifestation of crystallisation. Full EP available on Soundcloud.
Photo by Dr Rich Allen. Performers on the cover: Alys MacGregor and Carmen Rivas Perez.
Attempts on her Life, 2021 (Performer: Jaya Twill)
What is the show about?
Her life up until now has been… for what?
Set in the backstage of a fictional theatre, Attempts on her Life is a performance that uses intermediality to merge the text of Attempts on her Life by Martin Crimp with the characters and aesthetics of the film Opening Night (1977) by John Cassavetes. Featuring original sound compositions by Kitty Chesher.
Myrtle is an actress at the height of her career, but when the ingénue Anne arrives on the scene, Myrtle’s position in the industry is threatened. The theatre executives’ loyalty towards Myrtle is dwindling while their interest in Anne becomes obsessive, sending Myrtle into a downward spiral wherein she can’t distinguish between nightmare or reality.
How was the show made?
Attempts on her Life was made by BA (Hons) Contemporary Theatre and Performance 2nd year students under the supervision of Dr. Richard Allen at Wimbledon College of Arts in June 2021.
The company was given two pieces of material with the task to combine them into a live performance. Their primary material was the play Attempts on her Life by Martin Crimp and their secondary material was the film Opening Night (1977) by John Cassavetes. They took inspiration from Ivo van Hove’s adaptation of All About Eve (Noël Coward Theatre, 2019) for the production design and staging.
Through improvisations and workshops, the company identified three worlds within the performance: the dressing room, the backstage, and the screen. They worked through the Crimp text and allocated scenes in the play to each of the three worlds, creating and assigning characters to the script along the way. The enigmatic ‘Anne’ in Crimp’s play became the subject of the performance, as each scene was an attempt of the theatre staff, Myrtle or Anne herself to decode or celebrate the mystifying woman named Anne.
I’m a celebrity, get me out of here!
The production used a sound bed which played throughout the performance, emphasising Myrtle ’s increasing detachment from her reality. Throughout the performance a door buzzer would sporadically ring, cueing the delivery of bouquets of flowers to Myrtle ’s dressing room to reinforce that the performance was ‘real’ for the performer portraying Myrtle. The performance began with the construction of the stage, and ended with the ensemble deconstructing it around a panicked Myrtle who ’s trying to cling on to the flowers which had once adorned her dressing room. The closing scene revealed Myrtle alone on the floor of the studio where the performance took place, disillusioned by the bare space with only her flowers to comfort her.
The company: Lara van Huyssteen, Jaya Twill, Alys MacGregor, Carmen Rivas Perez, Jodie-Leigh Armstrong, Wiktoria Jagniszczak, Dovile Bernataviciute, Sam Cain, Kitty Chesher, Andrea Altavilla, Lu ‘Caroline’ Ling and Chin-tung ‘Amanda’ Wu.