Interviews

Five Reasons To See … Bloody Poetry

Set amidst the turbulent lives of a group of young
Romantic poets, Bloody Poetry is one of Harold Brenton’s
most lyrical plays. Director Rebecca Morahan tells us why we should see this moving, funny
and poignant production.

1) It really happened

Bloody Poetry tells the story of the
Romantic poets Percy Bysshe Shelley and Byron, the young Mary Shelley and her
step-sister Claire Clairmont, and the time they spent in exile in Switzerland
and Italy from 1816-1822. Entirely based on real events, the play vividly evokes
the relationships between these young writers and the ideas which inspired their
work.

2) It is about the importance and the difficulty
of idealism

Percy Bysshe Shelley believed in the importance of hope
as a force which releases the power of the imagination and permits society to
progress. In practice, his idealism was severely tested by the ghosts of his
past and the real and bloody events in his personal life and world around
him. Bloody Poetry is
a moving account of the tension that exists within all of us between our
imaginations and our physical selves, between our dreams and the limits, often
self-imposed, within which we live.

3) It has Byron in it

Need we say more? The original Romantic hero, it is said
that without Byron there would have been no Heathcliff or Mr. Darcy. Believed
at the time to be the greatest living English poet, his distinctive voice is
brilliantly captured in Brenton’s writing.

4) It brings the poetry to life

Shelley was 29
when he drowned off the coast of Spezia in Northwest Italy. During his short
and intense life, he wrote some of the most lyrical poems in the English
language. Condemned for his practice of free love and revolutionary ideals, and
with only 50 readers (by his own estimation) at the time of his death, his work
has gone on to inspire writers and political activists of subsequent
generations. Bloody Poetry sets Shelley’s, Byron’s and Mary
Shelley’s writing in a personal and historical context and invites us to return
to their work with fresh eyes or discover it for the first time.

5) It’s a fresh new production of a classic
play

Staged to critical acclaim in London and New York in
1984, and subsequently revived at the Royal Court in 1988, Bloody
Poetry
is one of the best loved plays by Brenton, one of Britain’s
foremost playwrights. Written partly in response to the climate under
Thatcher’s Britain, the personal and political themes of the play are today as
relevant as ever. This production, marking the play’s 25th
anniversary, offers the chance to discover this witty, at times searingly
painful, sexy and lyrical play. It is performed by a company of six young
actors who brilliantly capture the youth, energy and complexity of its characters,
at once convincingly of the period, and completely fresh and modern.

Bloody Poetry is at the White Bear Theatre in Kennington until 31 October. For more info, click here.