Esther Richardson will direct Pilot Theatre’s tour of The Bone Sparrow, Zana Fraillon’s beautiful, vivid, disturbing and deeply moving story about a Rohingya refugee boy who has spent his entire life living in a detention centre in Australia.
The Pilot Theatre production has also been developed in association with ATYP (Australian Theatre for Young People) and with the support of Bradford’s SBC Theatre, a group of creative professionals and artists who are committed to making work with, about and for those seeking sanctuary in the UK and internationally.
The Bone Sparrow will be the third co-production between Pilot Theatre, Derby Theatre, Belgrade Theatre Coventry, Mercury Theatre Colchester, and York Theatre Royal who in 2018 formed a new partnership to develop theatre for younger audiences.
Directed by Pilot Theatre’s Artistic Director Esther Richardson, the new adaptation will premiere at York Theatre Royal from 25 February – 5 March and then embark on a national tour including dates in London till 23 April.
The Bone Sparrow is heading out on tour, what can you tell us about the play?
The play is an adaptation by the acclaimed Australian playwright S. Shakthidharan of the incredibly moving book by Zana Fraillon. It’s about a young Rohingya boy, Subhi, who has been born into a detention centre for refugees in Australia. He has never ever experienced the world outside this camp, and must imagine everything beyond the fences.
The book makes for an incredible play, because it’s about some of the most important questions, for example, how we treat migrants and refugees, especially children. But it’s also about the power of the imagination, and how holding hope and visualising better circumstances is important for our human survival.
Finally, as is true for all Pilot’s plays, it’s about growing up, and in this case about how a child comes to truly understand more of the reality of his world and existence and history, and becomes the adult he needs to be for his community.
Why did you think this play would be ideal for Pilot Theatre?
Pilot Theatre tell coming of age stories and almost all our work is about some form of transition from childhood to adulthood. Yet, we are also one of the few companies in the UK who make productions for secondary age school children (and older) who totally commit to contemporary narratives, rather than the established works.
Our work aims to reflect, most especially for the young people who come to see it, the world as it is right now, with people from different parts of the world on stage, sometimes speaking different languages, and always reflecting the true diversity of race and ethnicity which we find in the UK in the 2020s.
It is just so important to do this work through storytelling to nurture the development of compassion and empathy for those who come from a different background to us: that can’t really be overstated. It is vital, and I only wish that there was more work like this happening. But in any case, this is what we aim to do with every production at Pilot and The Bone Sparrow is part of this continuing passion and commitment.
How well do you think S. Shakthidharan has captured Zana Fraillon’s original novel?
The text is beautiful. Adaptation is careful and delicate work, whatever you do, you want those who have loved the book to feel the spirit of the original is the guiding light, but you also have to set yourself a bit free to remake the story as a drama that is relevant right now to this audience here.
How a playwright and company interpret the book from where they are standing is also so pivotal. Shakthi was very keen, as we all were too at Pilot, to ensure that the Rohingya story came to the fore in this version, and so many things led from that excellent decision, including the decision to recruit key team members at each stage and to undertake the research we have done together for over a year.
I think Shakthi has done a magnificent job crafting Zana’s magical and moving narrative into powerful dramatic form, and managing to work on this from Australia with so many collaborators here at a time none of us could meet in person. It’s truly a feat of incredible skill and true generosity.
Tell us about some of the collaborations that have emerged with this project?
Projects as ambitious as this are only possible through collaboration. Critical work on the project has happened behind the scenes through our collaboration with Stand and Be Counted theatre who helped us to access the Rohingya community in Bradford in the first place, and who helped us connect with artists of refugee heritage such as Sirazul Islam (assistant director) and Maha Alomari (illustrator).
We were lucky to connect with both Shakthi and Australian Theatre for Young People, who have supported the evolution of the project and text from Sydney. We also have a number of Australians in the creative team including the brilliant Miriam Nabarro, the designer, who has also worked as an aid worker before becoming a theatre artist.
There are so many mind-blowingly talented people involved in the show, and who have contributed to its development over many months – from the amazing Alison Duddle who has created all the puppets, to Arun Ghosh who has written incredible music, to Daniel Denton the extraordinary video designer, and Ben Cowens the clever lighting designer – it’s an unbelievable privilege to be able to work with this team and others.
Then the whole project itself is underpinned by the collaboration across the Pilot consortium with York Theatre Royal, Derby Playhouse, Coventry Belgrade and Colchester Mercury. And this group of theatres supports our vital work with young people which is where every project starts – because this group reflect back to us what matters to them most about the book.
So, there are in the end, perhaps 50 or even 100 people whose thinking informs all the decisions that have led to what you will see on stage. That is something so remarkable, but it is important to note it, because it’s not something that is so easily or commonly understood about how a project like this takes life.
What’s the biggest challenge for you as a director in taking The Bone Sparrow out on tour?
At the moment the biggest challenge is clearly the pandemic which makes all live and performing arts a precarious endeavour. Right now, I am working on the question of how to keep everyone as safe as possible in the process of mounting the production, and everything needs to be carefully considered and reconsidered when you take that perspective.
I’ve even had to think about, what I will do in circumstances where I have to isolate from the rehearsal room myself, which is a question in twenty years of theatre-making, I have never had to consider before.
So we’ve had to design a different kind of process to usual, that can cope with people isolating if that’s necessary. In a sense, in these conditions, the biggest challenge is coming to accept that none of us embarking on this next phase can’t predict what will happen. I haven’t got all the answers right now, and whatever I do to prepare, I will have to deal with the challenges day by day and possibly hour by hour.
The only consolation then, is remembering that there’s always a significant degree of risk involved in mounting shows, even without a pandemic. So that flexibility of mindset and quick-thinking and openness to collaborate and listen out for the best idea and remain generous and as humble as possible, are skills and qualities that I’ve tried to develop so that I can call on these when I need them. I imagine this is true for all who dare direct theatre productions in the landscape of regional UK theatre in these times.
What would you say to anyone thinking of booking tickets to The Bone Sparrow?
This is going to be an utterly magical and memorable show. One of the greatest privileges of my job is that a lot of the people who come to see our work, often because they are coming from school, are experiencing live theatre in a venue for the very first time – and that means that they will usually remember the experience and Pilot’s work, whatever they thought of it, for a long time.
That means that we take incredibly seriously our job to excite everyone who sees our shows about the sheer power of this art form, always aiming to offer audiences a story that will make them think harder and feel more. Ultimately theatre is ephemeral, that is its beauty. It can never be recreated but it can live on inside in our hearts and minds. You have to be there to experience these incalculably human and moving effects. I hope you will be.
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