David Glass Ensemble presents

Gormenghast

UK Tour from May - June 2006

“Peake wrote with the eye of a painter”
M. Moorcock

In David Glass Ensemble’s production of Gormenghast, the whirl of confusion and fantastical atmosphere created for the audience - one of alternating desperation and enchantment - proves just as crucial as the plot; a melodrama charting the decline and fall of the House of Groan. Gormenghast’s dysfunctional, ruling family.

David Glass explains:

"For me it was an ambition come true. For nearly fifteen years I dreamed of adapting Peake’s extraordinary dark epic for the stage. The Gormenghast novels obviously demand a visual interpretation. The powerful story telling and sweeping visceral emotions of melodrama, coupled with the simplicity and theatrical clarity of Kabuki, became the theatrical language that I hoped would reflect Peake’s brooding vision. As with all the Ensemble’s work, text would be one element of the story telling. I therefore chose to collaborate with John Constable, a writer sympathetic to the needs of physical theatre.

The designer, Rae Smith and myself felt that to depict Gormenghast in any literal way would only diminish Peake’s visionary architecture. Instead, the actors were given the simple design of doors and doorways, silks and canes to play with. These elements were combined with composer John Eacott’s sampled score and Sally Owen’s choreography to create a vivid impression of this strange, isolated world."

The Gormenghast trilogy entails a dark and magical journey, which began life as the acclaimed story of Titus Groan. Mervyn Peake penned the work whilst disenchanted with the army and frustrated by its oppression, his twisted visions written in blank manuscripts and accompanied by detailed drawings of his characters. Each finished canvass was sent, chapter by chapter, to his wife Maeve Gilmore to keep safe until his return.