Oh, this paper-engineered eye has had me sweating for far too long, but at last is operating to my satisfaction. It’s really great to see it unfold from the gutter, swivel horizontally and open, though there were times when I felt I was never going to be able to get it working. A relief to be able to put this particular page behind me!
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Gradually the pages fill.
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Yesterday the cast gathered on the terrace here at Ty Isaf for a first reading and rehearsal of Witch. It’s been a very long time indeed since I was last a member of a ‘cast’, and as such I was a tad apprehensive about the occasion. As first readings go… and they can be terrifying… this one was rather enjoyable. We had the writer present… always a bonus… and his notes were extremely helpful. The sun was shining. We had tea and bara brith. (Welsh fruit loaf.) Jack entertained everyone with his frisbee antics. There was lots of laughter, smiles all round. Not so bad after all.
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I think we all know what we’re supposed to be doing now. I just have to find the hours to memorise my lines. (Although it’s a reading rather than a staged performance, you’ve got to look up from time to time. No audience wants to stare for very long at the top of an actor’s head while his nose is buried in a book!)
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The reading will be in the studio at the Aberystwyth Arts Centre at 7.45 pm on Thursday May 31st. Tickets may be purchased HERE.
‘Thirteen voices bring to life the thrilling tensions of a Suffolk village in the throes of the witchcraft hunts of the mid-seventeenth century. With the narrative pull of a novel and the vibrancy of a play for voices, Daman Walford Davies’s new poetry collection, Witch (Seren) is a gripping drama of paranoia and violence fed by religious fundamentalism, local grievances, and civil war. The speakers conjure a damning parable that chimes with the terror and anxieties of our own haunted age.’
