For one night only Cirque Viola is showing on at 15 FEB 7.30PM, NEW VOICES THEATRE, Jacksons Lane.
Viola is a reimagining of Twelfth Night, weaving Shakespeare’s original text with aerial performance, floor acrobatics and a live improvised soundtrack to illuminate the inner questions and turmoil of Shakespeare’s most vibrant heroine. Viola is performed as a solo show, told purely from her point of view
The Artiscape spoke with Adam Wright about his role as choreographer and performer in the production.
Adam is a circus artist and a graduate from the National Centre for Circus Arts. He specialises in Aerial Rope at but performs a multitude of disciplines.
How do you prepare for a role such as this?
Wright: Viola is a very intense show to perform, both physically and mentally. The performance is around 50 minutes long – for context, a normal aerial act is five minutes – with almost zero time offstage to catch my breath, so this was a massive leap for me and firstly required time to build the stamina to sustain such a demanding performance scene to scene.
There were also practical challenges- like learning to climb and manipulate aerial silks while wearing a ball gown! I’ve never seen another act try to do this, and now- having spent many rehearsal sessions untangling myself from seemingly endless amounts of tulle – I understand why. But, despite the initial learning curve, it’s been fantastic to discover the new creative choices that have come with it – and I get to wear a beautiful dress.
Another practical, immensely rewarding, challenge of preparation came from how we use aerial in the show. Most aerial acts pick one piece of equipment: aerial silks or corde lisse (rope), but for Viola we wanted to use the gendered preconceptions already tied to each equipment (the “feminine” silks with their inherent grace and lightness contrasting the more striking, “masculine” corde lisse) to represent the journey the character goes on.
We begin with Viola on silks and then switch to rope when she adopts the guise of the male courtier Cesario. But as the boundaries of gender blur and Viola’s self-identity is called into question, we begin to combine the silks and rope, often using both at once. Discovering the practicalities of how to combine them and seem effortless was challenging (that’s a lot of fabric around which to navigate, especially at speed and at height). But being able to physicalise and explore this genderqueer story, enhanced by the equipment, was hugely fulfilling for me artistically and ultimately has made the show so much more meaningful- and unique.
What are the challenges for you as a performer?
Wright: The first immediate challenge for me was to embark on this huge emotional journey. While Twelfth Night is a comedy, Viola explores the darker beats of our titular character’s journey from shipwrecked girl to (male) courtier, wrestling with questions of attraction and identity and fear of social rejection.
We really wanted to challenge the perception of Viola’s identity struggles neatly resolving by the end of the play, but to do so – to portray a character that faces such crises – required me and the creative team to delve into our own complex, personal and raw experiences and pasts.
And, again, the second challenge is a practical one of sustaining the performance.
When developing the show, we would create structured choreography for each scene. It became clear early on that the length of show would impact the scene’s choreographic progression.
For example, going from our scenes in Olivia’s Court and Orsino’s Court, which largely take place on aerial rope and therefore take a huge amount of grip strength, we needed to build time for my hands to stop cramping.
Having live, improvised music as the backbone of the show became hugely important, as it allows me some flexibility to take extra time offstage if I need it (admittedly not much – the maximum break is 60 seconds, coming after our emotional and physical climax, an eight minute tornado of acrobatic and aerial movement that represents Viola’s mental disintegration).
What are you looking forward to in performing in this version of Twelfth Night?
Wright: I really appreciate having the opportunity to bring this amazing play to the stage in a new way and challenge our audiences’ conceptions of gender identity through our adaptation.
While our ideas of gender are often quite fixed, it’s easy to forget that in Shakespeare’s time that all the female roles were actually played by men and the genderqueerness that Viola brings to the fore t always been a part of the text.
Beyond that, I have obviously become really attached to the character of Viola, and it’s a real privilege to inhabit her world with every performance. She experiences such an amazing personal and emotional journey and I get to share that with an audience every time I perform.
What do you think an audience will like about this version of Twelfth Night?
Wright: I think audiences will really appreciate how dynamic and fluid our show is as it y t so many of the clichés of Shakespeare adaptations to get to the heart of the story.
When I was first approached with the idea for Viola, I didn’t think that the story of Twelfth Night with its large cast of intertwined characters could be boiled down to a one-person show, but our adaptation really zeroes in on Viola’s emotional journey and relationships throughout the story.
Each performance is a bit different as well, from our incredibly talented musicians who improvise much of the score each night to the different emotional beats I emphasise in my performance each time I go on Viola’s journey.
Keeping that sense of spontaneity and fragility was really important for us when developing the show as we didn’t want anything about it to feel forced. Viola’s story is powerful and raw in many ways and Viola reflects her strength and desire to find herself through every element.
Cirque Viola is showing on at 15 FEB 7.30PM, NEW VOICES THEATRE, Jacksons Lane. To book tickets for this event click here.
