Still Lives
Still Lives
Lost Text/Found Space's feminist reimagining of Noel Coward's Still Life, adapted by Dan Rebellato. Staged in the disused Old Waiting Room at Peckham Rye station, this project evolved from R&D in 2023 to a full production in 2024.
R&D - November 2023
Full Production - July 2024
Still Lives
Guilty? Why should either of us feel guilty?
I don’t know – a sort of instinct – as though we were letting something happen that oughtn’t to happen.
Still Life is a short play written by Noel Coward in 1936 which inspired the classic British film Brief Encounter, by David Lean. Dan Rebellato creates a new version integrating rarely performed scenes from Coward's later play, Quadrille, creating a wider range of characters and stories in the world of the train station. Staged in the vast atmospheric space of the disused Old Waiting Room at Peckham Rye station.
The train station waiting room is a pause, a liminal space for stepping out of every day life and opening up the potential for joy and passion, escapes and new beginnings - if only for a brief while. An all female ensemble, multi-role-ing in all the characters, representing different versions of Laura, explored Coward’s subtly subversive story of desire and longing.
July 1-14 2024.
Production photography by Ellie Kurttz
Cast
-
Grace Haydn
-
Annabel Marlow
-
Jade-Marie Joseph
-
Izzy Lee
-
Georgina Peters
-
Flora Wellesley-Wesley
Creative & Production Team
-
Rebecca McCutcheon
(Director)
-
Lucy Ann Harrison
(Composer & Sound Design)
-
Anna Burns
(Designer)
-
Jack Hathaway
(Lighting Design)
-
Emily Briselden-Waters
(Producer)
Research & Development
Still Life is a short play written by Noel Coward in 1936 and which was the basis for the classic British film by David Lean, called Brief Encounter. In this version Dan Rebellato and Rebecca McCutcheon have worked together with permission of the Noel Coward estate to create a new version integrating rarely performed scenes from Coward's later play, Quadrille, creating a wider range of characters and stories in the world of the train station.
In Coward's play world, the train station waiting room is a pause, a space for stepping out of every day life and opening up the potential for joy and passion, escape and new beginnings - if only for a brief while.
In November 2023 as part of Making Connections, we spent a week working in space to explore our ideas about this new version of the play in this atmospheric environment. Described by audience members as inspiring, beautiful and engaging, we went on to develop our production further for a full scale production in summer 2024.
Below are images from our research sharing in November 2023, featuring Chisara Agar as Laura, Shane David Joseph as Alec, Miles Gallant as Albert and Grace Haydn as Beryl. Design by Anna Burns.
November 2023.
Production photography by Ellie Kurttz