SAVAGE IN LIMBO
POCKET OF LIGHT THEATRE COMPANY
present ‘SAVAGE IN LIMBO’ by J.P. SHANLEY
SEBASTIEN BLANC INTERVIEW by Andrew M Collins
Brighton based theatre director and acting coach Sebastien Blanc has recently launched a new theatre company, Pocket of Light, an exciting small group trained in Meisner and Method Techniques who strive to bring truth and authenticity to their productions which they hope will move and challenge audiences.
Their debut play, Savage In Limbo, written by Academy, Tony, and Pulitzer Award winner John Patrick Shanley, opens on October 10th at the wonderful Lantern Theatre in Kemptown. It will have an eight day run in total. Sebastien will be directing it alongside his partner and fellow teacher, Caroline Farrington.
He trained in the Meisner Technique at the acclaimed Actor’s Pulse drama school in Sydney, Australia for three and half years before returning to England in 2010. He lived in London where he acted for a while then taught at the impressive Giles Foreman Centre for Acting before opening The Actor’s Craft with Caroline, a school dedicated to Meisner and Method Techniques and at which they both teach. Following Covid he moved to Brighton to continue his work, including directing plays.
I spoke to Sebastien about his new theatre company, their forthcoming debut play and theatre within festivals. He’s very passionate about his craft and highly committed to producing quality productions. His initial training in Australia stood him in very good stead.
“The things that I saw happen on that stage, the performances that were achieved while we were training with these techniques and the level of truth and connection, scenes and performances that just moved me will stay with me to the day I die. That naturally became my bar of what I wanted to see on stage on a regular basis.
“I’ve got what drew me to the techniques, as always, was human truth. I’ve always wanted to see that told in the most human, beautiful, simple, authentic way on stage. And I feel that when an actor isn’t just performing, but actually living something and experiencing something as honestly and truthfully as possible, that’s when you really do have an opportunity to impact an audience.”
POCKET OF LIGHT THEATRE COMPANY
The theatre group was formed from students from The Actor’s Craft.
“We’ve got a lot of students from different backgrounds who’ve come to train with us. Some obviously have trained in other schools or in other studios in different countries. How we train is a studio system. So they train until they know the techniques. All these actors that have come to us or are training with us at the moment … we’ve basically formed the group theatre from a lot of these guys who are obviously some of the more the advanced students, but not all of them. Really, we’re just looking for people who are super passionate about doing theatre, who believe in the philosophy of what I was talking about in terms of who we are and the style of theatre we want to do.
“We want to obviously be picking plays that are in line with that, plays that will get into people’s minds, that do deal with the Big ideas, the things that are affecting people’s lives, that do push people to take action in life as well. I’m here to serve the story and to do theatre which can actually help change people’s lives. So Pocket of Light was born of that desire, to see theatre of that ilk.”
SAVAGE IN LIMBO
Savage in Limbo is a personal piece based on the J.P. Shanley’s own experiences of growing up in rough and tough environment of the Bronx, New York. Raw, honest and visceral, it’s set in a 1984 Bronx bar; a deeply personal piece, funny and intelligent, an engaging examination of what it means to be stuck in ‘Limbo’ and an exhortation to fight for the courage to break free.
It features five characters, some of whom who were previous classmates – Murk (a taciturn bartender), Linda (a promiscuous Bronx girl), Tony (Linda’s streamlined Italian boyfriend), Denise (a virginal loner) and April (a failed nun and alcoholic), all 32 years of age and stuck in the desperation of dead end lives. It’s been described as a “searing, existential and dramatically compelling work” (Backstage) and as being “conceived with sharp insight into the lives of losers, conveyed with a frisky and often hilarious wit” (New York Daily News).
Why did Pocket of Light choose this for their debut play?
“We originally found the play and really responded to it. And we had an original desire really just to work on it as a group theatre, as a new theatre company to get to know each other better and to feel the love of working on a brilliant play, but the more that we did it, the more we just started to connect to it.
“What has a bunch of people, from disparate places and economic backgrounds in England got to do with the Bronx? But that’s the thing about big theatre and great theatre; it’s universal. Ideas contained within our universe, there are things which affect us all. So you could be looking at a bar in Mumbai or a bar in Brazil or wherever you want to go in the world and you would find these same characters. Yes, with different accents, different behaviours, but the truths of these human beings is universal.
“I think Maya Angelou said it so well when she said, ‘we’re more alike than we are un-alike, my friends.’ And it’s that, it’s this thing that binds us all. Suffering is certainly something which binds all human beings. So this particular period where these guys … the Bronx at this time is coming out of an incredible period of desperation of a huge amount of poverty, a huge amount of governmental interference, which led to the breakdown of that community. But what gets a lot less press is how the community then did come together to, to raise itself back out. And these characters, that’s what they are all trying to do – to pull themselves out.”
Pocket of Lightand the cast put a huge amount of effort into research for the play, even going so far as getting a voice coach over from America.
“We’ve done interviews with people from the Bronx. We’ve got a voice coach over from America (Monica Blaze Leavitt). Fantastic. Beautiful. She’s absolutely amazing. All the actors have been working with a top professional when it comes to the accent work. You have so many interviews with (J.P.) Shanley as well, talking about his background. You watch every documentary you can. I’m trying to feed off of that. You read poetry, you listen to the music, you get on Google maps and you go down on the streets, you walk around the streets of Google maps, all the characters … so one of the characters, you hear in the script that he grew up on Archer street.
“So obviously we all went down to Archer Street, like you would’ve gone to if you were a kid (living there). You look for the landmarks, you look for the schools, St. Anthony’s (where J.P. Shanley went to school and based some of the characters), and you start to put it all together … it’s all part of the research of what we do. Looking into the background of absolutely every detail you can get your hands on.
“That’s the beautiful thing. It’s all connected. If you’re listening to a piece of music from a local artist that tells a story. That connects you to a certain aspect of the play or reveals something important. It’s all these little details. One by themself might not seem too important, but 10, 20, 100, suddenly you get richness.”
FESTIVALS AND THEATRE
One of the other things Sebastien is doing is trying to change the short-run culture of plays in Brighton, which is usually around three days. He explains that longer runs of two weeks are beneficial to both the theatre company and the actors. He’s been in contact with Brighton Fringe in anticipation of next year’s festival.
“It’s one of our main goals for Brighton in terms of really trying to change that culture. I think part of the way you do it is obviously by doing it yourself, is by taking that leap and, finding the money, investing the money. But it is incredibly hard when the surrounding culture isn’t that. So we’re hoping that this production will make a statement.
“We’ve gone for an eight day run, which is already quite long within the Brighton scene. And we’re hoping to inspire others, to meet others and to form more of a connection, meet other theatre groups and support each other so that we can start to put on longer productions and to encourage other people to be brave and to take that risk and to try and put on longer productions as well.
“You put so much time and effort into this, you spend so much money on these things. And then just to have an eight day run, even eight days, isn’t enough for me. Ideally you want that minimum two weeks … three week run would be great. It used to be three weeks.
“London’s now got the two weeks … is the new three week thing. There’s always this. Stripping away. It’s a real shame not to have those longer runs because it supports in so many ways, from the level of performance to more people being able to see it, to being able to acquire funding, it goes on and on. I’d love to have longer, but eight days is great to start with. We’re hoping to obviously transfer maybe to another theatre with it as well afterwards. If it goes well, obviously we could get that offer.”
THE LANTERN THEATRE
“It’s a lovely little theatre, great heritage as well. Daniel (head of acting) is a lovely man. His father was Frank Finlay, a wonderful actor. Janette Eddisford (director, writer and producer) is the principal. So it’s got a theatre culture there and they run the ACT Theater School out of there as well. There’s a lot of artistic environment and we were just looking for a nice black box theatre.
“We didn’t want to go too big at this point. The style of theatre we do is obviously more suited to smaller spaces as well. When I walked in there, it just it just felt right – let’s go with it.”
CHARITY SUPPORT
Along side their first production, The Pocket Theatre are supporting Bronx Based film makers and community outreach group Decade of Fire as part of their remit is to become a social enterprise.
“We’ve always wanted the charitable aspect of art to be really present and to have a very strong working relationship ideally with charities every time we do a play. Obviously the concept of what the play is about will link itself naturally to a charity or a community aspect that we would like to support. So that’s what we look for that every time.
“What we try to do is obviously spread the word, is try to connect with the idea of them and to put their site out there and put their messaging out there and try and draw attention to them as a charity at this point. This time we’ve looked at one called Decade of Fire, which is a charity and community driven project in the Bronx which is looking to raise awareness and support for the communities out there that have gone through an incredible period of governmental interference, which has led to a destruction of their communities.”
Finally, Sebastien summarises what the Pocket of Light theatre company and their production is trying to achieve: “We’re there to fight for something so much bigger than ourselves. When you can unite a cast behind that idea and when the cast get into that, putting a lot of focus and effort into opening up and telling the truth and connecting to the character, then you can create something beautiful.”
SAVAGE IN LIMBO runs at The Lantern Theatre, Brighton from Thu 10th- Sun 13th October and Thu 17th – Sun 20th October.
https://www.pocketoflight.co.uk
