Leah reviewed our performance at the Litfest as part of her coursework and generously allowed me to share it with you...
The Literature Festival is a new event to Wakefield. It features young and old writers, poets and readers from all over the area. It took place in the grounds of the Orangery and was supported by the Arts Council England.
Yew Tree, a local theatre company, took place in this year’s Lit Fest with an event called ‘Write It! Perform it!’. The people in this group are part of Yew Tree Youth Theatre but made this new group especially for the writer’s event. All of the material that was used in the performance had been created in a mere week! All written by the performers of the group.
The wonderful thing about the setting was that it was dark when the performance took place. This darkness made the whole performance more eary and ominous. Seen as thought I watched some of the scenes before the festival even begun, I noticed the darkness made it a very effective performance. Surprisingly, the darkness made it feel like it was a completely different performance!
The themes used throughout the performance were mainly war based with some other themes for example love and about the nature of the grounds. The performance took the audience around the Orangery; this made the performance interesting for the audience, seeing different things from a different perspective around the area. There were a total of 11 scenes that took place around the Orangery all having some sort of link theme to where the scene took place.
All of the scenes were amazingly written and performed and to someone who appreciates the poems, stories and words it would be somewhat inspiring. One scene that particularly stood out to me was the scene set over near the grave yard. It started off with a narrator like character talking to the audience saying an introduction of:
‘Gravestones. Story tellers of those whose stories have ended. The scribe on the cold touched surface speaks volumes but none as loud as the stones themselves. The writing will tell you a person’s name but it will never tell you who that person was.’
Followed by 4-5 small performances about people’s stories. Including the war theme again and one about a mother losing their child. The one about the mother losing their child had three people acting about the three perspectives of mother, the positives and negatives. This whole scene was one that made you think right from the very start and the performance as a whole had a large impact. The words and actors were brilliantly organised and the whole scene seemed very real. This as well as the rest of the performances had an all-round positive reaction.
This was very cleverly set out and spread across The Orangery and it was more than a few poems, it was more of a drama performance because of the actions and how it was presented.
Being part of Yew Tree, it was great to see people who I act with every week do something different and something I wasn’t really a part of. I thoroughly enjoyed going down to the Orangery to watch my drama company do something different. The performances were all performed wonderfully to say it had only been set up over one week. The hard work and effort put into the performance was shown due to how well it was performed and presented on the night. The Lit Fest was mainly aimed at people interested in literature although, to start with I wasn’t the most interested of people. Throughout the evening it become more and more interesting from being inside to coming out into the darkness and watching more of a performance than a few poems and speeches. I would recommend going to see any Yew Tree performance, the actors and directors do a brilliant job with what they do. Whether it be writing the script, sorting out a costume or actually performing the piece.
The Literature Festival is a new event to Wakefield. It features young and old writers, poets and readers from all over the area. It took place in the grounds of the Orangery and was supported by the Arts Council England.
Yew Tree, a local theatre company, took place in this year’s Lit Fest with an event called ‘Write It! Perform it!’. The people in this group are part of Yew Tree Youth Theatre but made this new group especially for the writer’s event. All of the material that was used in the performance had been created in a mere week! All written by the performers of the group.
The wonderful thing about the setting was that it was dark when the performance took place. This darkness made the whole performance more eary and ominous. Seen as thought I watched some of the scenes before the festival even begun, I noticed the darkness made it a very effective performance. Surprisingly, the darkness made it feel like it was a completely different performance!
The themes used throughout the performance were mainly war based with some other themes for example love and about the nature of the grounds. The performance took the audience around the Orangery; this made the performance interesting for the audience, seeing different things from a different perspective around the area. There were a total of 11 scenes that took place around the Orangery all having some sort of link theme to where the scene took place.
All of the scenes were amazingly written and performed and to someone who appreciates the poems, stories and words it would be somewhat inspiring. One scene that particularly stood out to me was the scene set over near the grave yard. It started off with a narrator like character talking to the audience saying an introduction of:
‘Gravestones. Story tellers of those whose stories have ended. The scribe on the cold touched surface speaks volumes but none as loud as the stones themselves. The writing will tell you a person’s name but it will never tell you who that person was.’
Followed by 4-5 small performances about people’s stories. Including the war theme again and one about a mother losing their child. The one about the mother losing their child had three people acting about the three perspectives of mother, the positives and negatives. This whole scene was one that made you think right from the very start and the performance as a whole had a large impact. The words and actors were brilliantly organised and the whole scene seemed very real. This as well as the rest of the performances had an all-round positive reaction.
This was very cleverly set out and spread across The Orangery and it was more than a few poems, it was more of a drama performance because of the actions and how it was presented.
Being part of Yew Tree, it was great to see people who I act with every week do something different and something I wasn’t really a part of. I thoroughly enjoyed going down to the Orangery to watch my drama company do something different. The performances were all performed wonderfully to say it had only been set up over one week. The hard work and effort put into the performance was shown due to how well it was performed and presented on the night. The Lit Fest was mainly aimed at people interested in literature although, to start with I wasn’t the most interested of people. Throughout the evening it become more and more interesting from being inside to coming out into the darkness and watching more of a performance than a few poems and speeches. I would recommend going to see any Yew Tree performance, the actors and directors do a brilliant job with what they do. Whether it be writing the script, sorting out a costume or actually performing the piece.
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