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Nation
based on a novel by Terry Pratchett and adapted by Mark Ravenhill
First published as a novel in 2008, Nation portrays a parallel world in 1860. Two teenagers, Mau and Daphne are thrown together by a tsunami that has destroyed Mau’s village and left Daphne shipwrecked on his South Pacific island, thousands of miles from home. One wears next to nothing, the other a long white dress; neither speaks the other’s language; somehow they must learn to survive.
As starving refugees gather, Daphne delivers a baby, milks a pig, brews beer and does battle with a mutineer. Mau fights cannibal Raiders, discovers the world is round and questions the reality of his tribe’s fiercely patriarchal gods. Together they come of age, overseen by a foul-mouthed parrot, as they discard old doctrine to forge a new Nation.
The cast is led by Gary Carr (as Mau) and Emily Taaffe (as Daphne), and also includes: Gaye Brown, Paul Chahidi, Elaine Claxton, Adrian Decosta, Mike Denman, Lorna Gayle, Howard Gossington, Tony Hasnath, Robert Hastie, Michelle Lukes, Nick Malinowski, Michael Mears, Itxaso Moreno, Al Nedjari, Bhasker Patel, Nicholas Rowe, Sirine Saba, Craig Stein, David Sterne, Jason Thorpe and Nancy Wei George.
The production is directed by Melly Still, who also designs the set with Mark Friend; with costumes by Dinah Collin, lighting by Paul Anderson, projections by Jon Driscoll, music by Adrian Sutton and sound by Paul Arditti.
The National Theatre, London
The National Theatre, founded in 1963, and established on the South Bank of the River Thames in London in 1976, has three theatres – the Olivier, the Lyttelton and the Cottesloe. It presents an eclectic mix of new plays and classics, with seven or eight productions in repertory (sharing the stages) at any one time. Actors often appear in more than one play during a season. The National aims constantly to re-energise the great traditions of the British stage and to expand the horizons of audiences and artists alike, and aspires to reflect in its repertoire the diversity of the nation’s culture. With its extensive programme of Platform performances, backstage tours, foyer music, exhibitions, and free outdoor entertainment the National recognises that the theatre doesn’t begin and end with the rise and fall of the curtain. By touring – and now, NT Live - it shares its work with audiences in the UK and abroad. The first NT Live season aims to capture the diversity of the National’s work: a classic tragedy, a Shakespeare, a family show (Nation) and a new play.NT Live
On the 30th January 2010, the National Theatre audience for Nation numbered many thousands. In dozens of venues in Europe from Ireland to Scandinavia, Iceland to Estonia, theatregoers watched the action live, as it happened. A short time later, taking time zones and satellite orbits into account, these audiences were joined by others in the United States and Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. The screening of Nation in Greece is part of this project.It is over a year since the producer of NT Live, David Sabel, began work on the project. Meeting Nicholas Hytner while researching his dissertation for a Cambridge MBA, he found that his subject - digital opportunities in theatre - chimed with the artistic director’s interest in presenting theatre on cinema screens. Hytner had observed the New York Metropolitan Opera’s success in relaying productions by satellite into other venues and had some experience of this kind of enterprise himself: his production of Don Carlos for the Royal Opera House was screened in Trafalgar Square last year. And so a pilot project began to take shape.
First Sabel went to cinema chains and independents equipped with the necessary digital projector and received an enthusiastic response to the idea. The Arts Council and NESTA provided seed funding, later to be joined by Travelex’s sponsorship of the international dimension. “We wanted to capture the diversity of what the National does”, says Sabel, “a Shakespeare, something for young people and a new play as well as a classic”. And so All’s Well That Ends Well, Nation Mark Ravenhill’s adaptation of the Terry Pratchett novel and Alan Bennett’s new play The Habit of Art, involving WH Auden and Benjamin Britten, will receive the NT Live treatment. Nation, designed for 10 year-olds and over will provide the first NT Live matinee.
“We are not”, says Nicholas Hytner, “trying to make a movie. What we are trying to do is use the skills of a multi-video camera team to broadcast as vividly as possible the experience you might get if you were sitting in the theatre.” And, he adds, “There are going to be some big advantages. We are going to be able to take you in close”.
