Our response to the impact of Covid-19 on our live theatre productions has been to create the Riversmeet Shorts and the Riversmeet Monologues, two series of very short films taking different approaches to monologues from our original play scripts.
Eamons Boots
On Friday 30 March 1849, at the height of the Great Hunger, around 600 starving men, women and children living in and around Louisborough in County Mayo were to told gather for inspection by The Board of Guardians (who administered the Poor Relief), and perhaps be given food.
When the people had gathered they were told their ‘Guardians’ had decided to go hunting. And they would have to walk the 12 miles through bleak, wet and freezing conditions to the hunting lodge to be inspected.
For people who were already starving, this walk was a death sentence for many. But they did so in the hope of receiving aid.
When the survivors arrived they were told that the guardians could not be disturbed as they were eating their lunch. When they finally were seen, the people were sent away empty-handed. Many more died on the journey back.
Bookshop
This is a companion piece to Lynton. It’s 1812 and Elizabeth Hitchener has joined Percy Shelley in Lynton where he is in self imposed exile. Here she explains how a woman from a humble background became such an avid reader.
Bookshop is an excerpt from a play by Richard Bradbury, and was directed by Aidan Casey. Elizabeth Hitchener is played by Celeste de Veazey (& Bérengère Ariaudo de Castelli).
Hatchet Job
This short is adapted from a speech in a play that Richard Bradbury has been working on for several years. The play is an extended conversation between two men for whom violence is a means of self-expression. Each of their monologues is based on an event that he had either witnessed or had described to him. He then tried to explore the attraction to violence because unless we try to understand why it is attractive to some people, we won't be able to combat its presence.
The part of the Young Woman is played by Alex Stewart and her almost- "listen with mother" performance captures the contrast between voice and content that characterises the darkest fairy stories. Like Little Red Riding Hood...
Lynton
It’s 1812, following the publication of his Address to the Irish People and subsequent clash with the English authorities in Dublin, political activist Percy Shelley is in self imposed exile in North Devon. Home Secretary Lord Sidmouth has sent his spies in pursuit.
Shelley was the subject of intense surveillance by the state: his post was opened and Sidmouth’s spies watched his movements and activities. The play connects the story of Shelley’s days in Lynton to our present fears and worries about the encroaching loss of privacy today.
Percy Shelley is Played by Aidan Casey