Manchester production of Hill-Land

[Anton Wagner]

Hi Brian,

I didn't see the Manchester production of Hill-Land but judging from the 
production photographs it was realistic in its acting and costuming.

The Worlds of Herman Voaden website at Ed Mullaly's Atlantic Canada Theatre site
http://www.lib.unb.ca/Texts/Theatre/voaden/index.htm posts a number of other 
directorial approaches in its chronological "Scholarly Assessments" section.

For Hill-Land David Owen, in his 1997 "Director's Note" for the University of 
Alberta Abbedan Theatre production, took as his conceptual cue the abstract 
elements of the play and used some of the techniques of Richard Foreman and 
Robert Wilson in his staging. 

There is coverage of your own 1992 Equity Showcase production of Murder 
Pattern, "In the Beginning Was Geography," and in Mira Friedlander's Toronto 
Star review "Voaden's land-rooted play perfect fit for dramaturge."

Denis Johnston provides 1996 "Director's Notes" for the Shaw Festival 
production of Murder Pattern. Viviane Kertesz, in her University of Western 
Ontario Gazette review, "A Canadian Cultural Resurrection," describes Christine 
Lacey's 1998 Murder Pattern production.

Martha Perkyns, editor of the Haliburton County Echo, examines at length the 
actual historical facts and local characters (with photos of them) on which 
Voaden based his play, in her 1997 "Murder Pattern: The lines between fact and 
fiction blur in a play which dramatizes a real-life murder in Lutterworth."

Pamela MacKay, who directed Rocks at the University of Toronto in 1991, 
provides her 2000 director's notes for her production of Rocks at the A.Y. 
Jackson Secondary School Millennium Arts celebration.

I make suggestions for "A Post-Modern Production of The Prodigal Son" at the 
end of my 2005 research article, "Frederick Jacobi and Herman Voaden: The 
Prodigal Son." The opera has not yet had a fully professional production.

All of Voaden's play texts and theatre essays are posted on The Worlds of 
Herman Voaden website.
 

----- Forwarded message from Brian Quirt <bquirt at interlog.com> -----
    Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2005 15:01:42 -0400
    From: Brian Quirt <bquirt at interlog.com>
Reply-To: Brian Quirt <bquirt at interlog.com>
 Subject: Re: Manchester production of Hill-Land link
      To: awagner at yorku.ca

hi Anton...

How fascinating to see Voaden's work filtered through a pair of contemporary
British artists. Were you able to see the production?

Brian.


-----------
Brian Quirt
Artistic Director
Nightswimming
http://www.nightswimmingtheatre.com



Information and production photographs of the April 20-22, 2004 John Thaw
Studio production of Herman Voaden's Hill-Land in Manchester, U.K., can be 
found at http://www.umsu.manchester.ac.uk/drama/hilland.htm

The production was staged by music and drama students who wanted to put on a
piece of music theatre and ran across Voaden's text in Richard Perkyns' Major
Plays of the Canadian Theatre anthology.