Grid Iron in association with Platform present South Bend by Martin McCormick at The Lemon Tree in Aberdeen.
In 2006 playwright and actor Martin McCormick flew across the Atlantic to be reunited with a woman he had fallen passionately in love with. But in the four months of their absence she had changed. Completely. She’s in Indiana now, not California, living with her step-mum who hates the British. And almost as soon as he’s arrived he’s on the road again, penniless and desperate to get home to Scotland.
South Bend, based on Martin’s personal experience, muses on journeys, on the dusty road, on long-distance love dissolving into the pixelated blur of Skype, on the vast distances of the Atlantic Ocean and the American continent and of men and women separated by a common language.
“Strangers would buy you drinks in bars because ‘Hey, are you Scottish? This guy’s Scottish! Everyone! EVERYONE LISTEN UP! This guy is Scottish. That’s awesome, man. Lemme buy you a drink dude. My name is McDonnell!”
“That’s actually Irish, but I’ll have a bottle of Corona, thanks…”
Performed by Martin McCormick and Jess Chanliau, who plays all the other parts, and underscored by the live foley artist David Pollock, South Bend is a road movie for the stage – of hope, of love, of Eddie Izzard. Of a small country and a vast one, of a good-Samaritan and a relationship gone bad.
Martin McCormick / Writer and Performer
Martin McCormick is one of Scotland’s most exciting emerging playwrights. His play Squash
won Best New Play the Critics Award for Theatre in Scotland in 2015 and he is currently under commission to a number of companies including the National Theatre of Scotland who presented his play 'Ma, Pa & the Little Mouths' at the Traverse and the Tron this Spring.
He has also had new work presented as part of Play, Pie, Pint in 2018 and recently wrote and directed Howden Park Centre’s pantomime. Martin is also an accomplished actor and has performed with Grid Iron on two occasions but he has moved strongly into writing practice, having been part of the Traverse 50 and having written for Random Accomplice and a Play, Pie and a Pint for Oran Mor (most recently with Flo which was directed by Grid Iron’s Ben Harrison). He has also had various rehearsed readings with National Theatre of Scotland, Dundee Rep, the Traverse and Playwright’s Studio Scotland.
Jess Chanliau / Performer
Jess is an American/French actor who graduated from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in July. While still at college Jess took part in the script development for South Bend with the work-in-progress performances at Hidden Door being their first professional, paid acting work. In addition to their studies in Scotland, Jess graduated from the Pacific Conservatory of the Performing Arts in California (2013) and also attended Le Conservatoire National Supérieur d'Art Dramatique in Paris.
Ben Harrison / Director
Ben has been Co-Artistic Director of Grid Iron since 1996. Highlights include The Bloody Chamber, Gargantua, Decky Does A Bronco, Fermentation, Those Eyes, That Mouth, The Devil’s Larder, Roam, Once Upon A Dragon, Yarn, Barflies, Huxley’s Lab, Spring Awakening, Crude and Jury Play. He was Associate Director of the Almeida Theatre London 2000-2002, Director of the Dutch company Muztheater 2004-2008 and a Fellow of NESTA from 2001-2004. In Scotland he has directed for the NTS, EIF, Traverse, Tron, Oran Mor, Arches, Citizens, Dogstar, Tromolo Productions and Paper Doll Militia. His show Peter Pan for 360 Entertainment, (UK and US tour 2009-2015) was seen by more than a million people. www.benharrison.info.
David Pollock / Foley Artist
David Pollock is a musician, composer and sound designer with a strong connection to nature and organic audio. This evidently infiltrates, influences and inspires his soundscapes and musical works. Recently he helped create Bird with Sita Pieraccini and his sound element stood out to many of the critics at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2016. As well as composing for theatre and moving image David continues to write and perform with melodious post-rock band, Skies Fell. Examples of his work are available to listen to at www.davidapollock.com
David will conjure an astonishing variety of sounds and textures as well as using contemporary pop songs and TV title music to evoke Martin’s 2006 American adventure.
Lewis den Hertog / Video Designer
Lewis den Hertog is an artist based in Glasgow. He has previously designed video for Grid Iron’s productions Jury Play (2017), Crude (2016), Light Boxes (Fringe First winner 2015) and The Authorised Kate Bane (2012). He has also worked previously with Martin McCormick having designed video for his CATS award-winning production Squash. Lewis was video designer for Velvet Evening Seance, directed by Ross MacKay for 2017’s Edinburgh Fringe.
He also recently provided sound and video design for The Divine Chaos Of Starry Things written by Paul Mason, produced by Watch Your Head for the White Bear Theatre, London. Other productions Lewis has provided AV design for include The Cheviot, The Stag, And The Black, Black Oil, 2016 Tour (Dundee Rep), Escape Speed (Aberdeen Performing Arts), Woman In Mind (Dundee Rep), Time And The Conways (Royal Lyceum Theatre) and The Tempest (Dundee Rep).
Claire Halleran / Set & Costume Designer
Claire Halleran is a graduate of Glasgow School of Art and a Master of Fine Art, Queen
Margaret University. She has worked previously with Grid Iron on the 2015 remount
production of The Devil’s Larder. Other design credits include Joan Eardley: A Private View (Heroica Theatre Company), The View from Castle Rock (Stellar Quines and the Edinburgh International Book Festival), Whisky Galore, To Begin, Tin Forest South West, Reasons to Dance, Allotment (National Theatre of Scotland), Friends Electric (Visible Fictions), The Little Boy That Santa Claus Forgot, Once On This Island, The Polar Bears Go Wild, Mr Snow, The Night Before Christmas, Rudolf (macrobert arts centre), Forgotten Forest, Luvhart, First Light, My House (Starcatchers) Three Little Pigs, Red Riding Hood, Goldilocks (Platform), The Pilgrimage, Ballerina Ballroom- Cinema of Dreams (Mark Cousins /Tilda Swinton), and various interactive exhibition events for Edinburgh International Science Festival.
For images and more information please visit www.clairehalleran.weebly.com.
Claire is also a founding member of The Envelope Room, an organisation which supports and promotes Scottish designers and with whom Grid Iron are delivering a series of workshops and masterclasses.
Grid Iron
“Grid Iron is not just a Scottish national treasure but one of the companies that has shaped British theatre over the last 20 years.” The Guardian Grid Iron is an Edinburgh based new writing theatre company which specialises in creating site-specific and location theatre although it also produces work for the stage. During its 22 years it has received 31 awards and a further 24 nominations covering all aspects of its work from acting, writing and use of music to stage management, design and technical expertise.
Its adventures have taken in extraordinary places; from the slopes of Edinburgh Zoo to a massive oil-rig manufacturing shed in Dundee, a boat-builders island in a Norwegian fjord, to the former General Security building in Beirut, a working cancer hospital in Jordan, the old City Morgue in Cork, the largest climbing arena in Europe and parks, housing estates, playing fields and bars (for performances as well as recreation!) around Scotland and Britain.
It has made co-productions with many partners including the National Theatre of Scotland, the Traverse Theatre, Dundee Rep Theatre, The Almeida Theatre, London, Stellar Quines and Lung Ha Theatre Company and has delivered two European Capital of Culture Commissions (Cork 2005 and Stavanger 2008). It has performed thirteen times at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and twice at both Edinburgh International Festival and Edinburgh International Science Festival. In 2014, Grid Iron was delighted to become the first theatre company to work in co-production with Edinburgh International Book Festival on Letters Home, which was supported by the Scottish Government’s Edinburgh Festivals Expo Fund and was also part of Culture 2014, Glasgow’s cultural celebration of the Commonwealth Games.
South Bend is on at The Lemon Tree on September 11 - 12, at 7pm. Tickets are available from www.aberdeenperformingarts.com, in person at the box office.
