Emotive new show explores universal theme of death
Circle Of Fifths, a new immersive theatre production from National Theatre Wales, is a powerful meditation on death that emerged from the shadow of the Covid-19 pandemic. Its creator Gavin Porter told Jenny White how losing a relative to Covid helped to shape the show...
THE Covid-19 pandemic has brought death to the front of many people’s minds – not least documentary filmmaker and theatre director Gavin Porter, who lost his uncle to Covid.
When he started talking with National Theatre Wales (NTW) about developing a new project, he knew that death was the theme he wanted to explore.
Porter’s documentary background set the course for the new project – he wanted real people’s stories rather than a fictionalised script and he chose to focus on people from his home turf of Butetown in Cardiff, a richly multicultural area with its own traditions around death, including carrying shovels to help fill the grave at burial.
This image was especially important to him, having been unable to give his uncle a full send-off due to pandemic restrictions.
“Only 10 people could go to the funeral,” he says. “We got together as a family and we celebrated his life as much as we were able to, but I always felt that we never really marked that moment as I would have imagined, or potentially as he would have imagined.
“And it got me thinking about the role of funerals – their function to mark a moment in time and then we move on to the next period of our lives.”
Porter decided to begin his work by asking people on Twitter what song they would like played at their funeral.
The overwhelming response included everything from Abba to the Abyssinians, Gil Scott Heron to Nat King Cole.
The production’s title, Circle Of Fifths, refers to a tool of music theory that organises pitch into a sequence. Jazz musicians will sometimes disrupt this sequence to create new musical pathways.
It is in this disharmony and discord that Porter draws parallels with the impact loss has as a fracture in the rhythm of our lives.
He went on to interview 12 people on the subject of death and these short films form a basis for the live documentary performance, enhanced by live performances including music, dance and spoken word.
The collective of musicians and artists who appear in the show include Cardiff musical legend Anthony ‘Drumtan’ Ward, Cardiff singer, producer, multi-instrumentalist and visual artist Kiddus Murrell, Butetown performer Wella, actor and musician Francesca Dimech and Maureen Blades, a funeral director who is also a dancer.
It was natural for him to focus on voices and performers from Butetown
– living there has shaped him and his outlook on the world.
“I’m a product of my environment, and the stories that I grew up on – the nostalgia that we all have for childhood places and childhood friends and childhood experiences run deep in me,” he says.
“The community has gone through various changes and nowhere is like it used to be. Part of what I’m interested in as an artist is retelling some of those stories or keeping some of those ideas alive.
“I didn’t grow up in the era of Tiger Bay, but I grew up on those stories and with the philosophy of people who grew up in the area in terms of how we are accepting of other people, other cultures. Within the majority of people’s families there is an amalgamation of cultures and traditions and histories and I’m interested in finding ways to tell those stories.”
The subject matter made the creation of Circle Of Fifths an emotional experience and NTW offered participants the service of a bereavement counsellor if they needed it.
“It’s been really emotionally charged, because people are sharing personal stories about bereavement and going deep into things – so there have been a lot of tears in the room,” he says.
However, the process has been a positive, and possibly healing, one – and music has played a key role in this. “Death is an unknown and I think creativity helps us to imagine different realms or different possibilities.
“I also think that music helps us to remember moments in time and various chords evoke different feelings.
“Sometimes you can’t even articulate this, so music helps unlock emotions.
“When people lose someone they have to go through the business of getting everything in line, ready for the funeral.
“It’s not until they hear a certain song in the church or wherever the funeral is that the grieving process is unlocked for them – music is a powerful tool for unlocking emotions.”
The show may focus on one area of Cardiff, but the themes are universal, speaking to us all at a point in history when mortality seems especially present.
It also brings together a group of talented and, in some cases, lesserknown performers – and Porter is delighted to have been able to work with them.
“I’m proud to have been afforded the freedom and the trust to work with people who I think are super talented – and now this is a platform for them to show their talent,” he says.