Production Notes for Birds Without Wings

Welcome to Birds Without Wings, our 25^th autumn tour since our first in 1982 with When The Boats Came In, our musical documentary of the Lowestoft herring fishing. It may seem a long way from the most eastern point of Britain to the west coast of Turkey, but it’s remarkable how cultural differences retain their hold on our lives, whether rooted in something as seasonal as drifting and trawling, as deeply held as Christian and Muslim, or as territorial as the rivalry between Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft or Greece and Turkey.

So how did we get caught up in the Ottomans and the Greeks? Birds Without Wings by Louis de Bernières came out just as we were performing Another Three Sisters, which Louis saw several times since his partner played Marsha in it. In fact at a party the previous Christmas when the update of Chekhov was still being mooted, he expressed some concern at classic texts being appropriated like this and being given such a cavalier makeover. So it was all the more agreeable when he turned round and said he thought it had worked. Roll on another six months, and I was curled up under the Christmas tree with Birds Without Wings, thinking what a great play it might make if only we could get permission. It was already a worldwide bestseller, despite the English critics’ initial sniffy response. They’d been outwitted by Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, which had been a runaway success down to word of mouth rather than their own approbation, and were still sore. But the world, and the readers, once again saw the book take off. Although I was pleased with its popularity, because I liked it and wanted to turn it into a play that would be successful, I was also worried lest it do so well we would be denied the chance to stage it. In fact the film rights have been sold only recently. However, Louis responded warmly to my tentative email and we were on our way.

Of course Louis’ book does have a strong link to East Anglia in that the major part of it was written here. Indeed the fact that a major novelist has chosen this part of the world as home is something we should celebrate anyway. But even if it had been written elsewhere I believe I would still have been drawn to its fable-like interpretation of historical events and its unique insight into the kinds of things that make up what we call identity. Sergeant Osman’s rejoinder: “Home is not the only place you come from” reminds me of a line I reluctantly cut from Bone Harvest: “sometimes where you’re going is more important than where you come from.” They both remind me of an interview with John Prescott a few years ago when he announced he was brought up working class but was now middle class. Various pundits, and his own father, jumped on him for being snobbish but his answer made clear that he had to take both ends of his life into account. Never was this more true than for the people caught up in the infamous population exchange between Greece and Turkey following the First World War.

Nor are many of the consequences of this time and period unrelated to contemporary issues. Besides the obvious interest in Islam (although Louis’ Muslims are far from fundamentalist), Turkey is applying for accession to the European Union; Cyprus remains split between two nations; and one of the central events of this time, the Armenian massacre, continues to create controversy and protest as to whether it deserves the term genocide. Even as I write this, the Nobel prize has been awarded to Orhan Pamuk, the Turkish novelist in trouble for so describing it, and the French Assembly voted to make it a crime to deny it happened. In our play, like the other great events of the period, it lies outside the borders of the village and so all we see are the people inside having their lives shaped by things apparently outside their control. Or are they? 

But this is to dwell on the divisions. The larger part of the book is the depiction of a society where these differences are joyously interwoven and two peoples are confident enough in their own cultures to respect and trust the other. And in rehearsal it has been the same. We have deliberately sought a cast with backgrounds reflecting the ethnic mix of the story. So Turks and Greeks (mainland, Cypriot and British for each), Muslim and Christian (both lapsed and current), have worked together, often with Muslim playing Christian and vice-versa, and contributed songs, music, prayers, hymns, gestures and other cultural details to the production.

In adapting the book I have read it five times and grown to like it more with each reading and each draft of the play. Thanks must go to Louis de Bernières for trusting me with something that I know is very dear to him.

Twenty-four years ago in When The Boats Came In we celebrated on stage the dramatic bringing of the railway to Lowestoft by Morton Peto, which launched the massive development of the fishing industry in this part of the world. It also launched us and so it seems fitting that once again I am thanking One Railway for their sponsorship of this tour. And as if that wasn’t enough of a connection, the 25-year-old daughter of the actor who played Peto in that production has been working as my assistant director on this show as part of the Arts Council’s Escalator programme for emerging young talent. Once again it is the next generation that will deliver the future.

Ivan Cutting

Artistic Director