Betty Miller Blog - Tristan

 Betty Miller Blog

This project has been truly enriching and I feel honoured to be able to represent such a rich history through a performance like this. From the start when I first viewed Betty Miller’s statues, I felt inspired, and in wonder. There were intricacies in each individual piece giving them such life, some of my very favourites being Dove Hill and Ambulance Man due to their ability to take something seen everyday, like a street of houses or a paramedic, and almost transporting me to a bygone era where you realise, they were people like us, with their own lives and their own struggles. 

Then we begun the crafting of the piece. From the beginning, me and actors were given almost full control over the process, where we were told to think of some themes which reverberate throughout the piece (such as class divide and oppression) and create some of the opening movement based upon these. With each actor working brilliantly in unison, the creative process became fun and engaging, but most of all supportive and interesting, as we built upon each others ideas to craft an image and story around an era which still echos its effects for many of us today. Then we crafted our characters around our idea of key members of a village community; one which the mines still held power over. Some examples were children of a contrasting class, one of which so eagerly wishes for a sweet treat, and the other unable to understand the struggles of the world around him. My character was a young adult, who had just left school, and now struggles with finding his place in his family, and more so his community. We took these characters, and each actor wrote a monologue around their tales which displayed our themes, which were then tweaked and brushed up by the wonderful Sarah Osborne to be fit for performance. 

Our piece, now complete, was performed multiple times over the course of a lovely day at the National Coal Mining Museum, where the very statues we based our piece off of were residing on display, and the fruits of our creative labour came together to form a beautiful and unique day of performance and celebration of a special artist.