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There are more photos from this production below. Selecting any of the small thumbnail images will show a larger version of the picture in the main part of the page. »

Flower of Darkness by Sheila Yeger - Vampyr
Light of Desire by Robin Seaville - Ralph

- King Street Gallery, Bristol. Directed by John Downie.

A double bill of two loosely connected one-man shows. both written especially for me. Sheila Yeger's dark and brooding 'Flower of Darkness' dealt with the beast within the man, while 'Light of Desire' by Robin Seaville was a surreal comedy about the man within the machine.

'Flower' came about as a response to a request I had made to Sheila. I had recently done 'Dracula' and I was interested in the idea of bringing the idea of the vampire into a contemporary setting. I wondered if Sheila could write a play about a 'modern' vampire? What I got was so much more than that - a brooding, deeply disturbing study of a man who may or may not be a monster. In the darkness of his room, the man obsesses, writes his journal and watches / talks to himself on video. As these disjointed fragments coalesce, it becomes apparent that there is a terrible secret being stalked. Is he really a vampire? A serial killer? Or, perhaps most disturbing, just a man?

Perhaps the most interesting technical aspect of the show was the video set-up (fairly groundbreaking for the time) which allowed me to record myself 'live' on stage and then talk to the just recorded footage on camera, as well as playing previously recorded material. The director, John Downie, and myself worked on the video tapes to produce a hallucinatory collage of voyeuristic stalking as well as abstract and horrific images - dismembered dolls, red roses, ravens and anonymous women were stitched into a moving backdrop for the play's poetic and suggestive text. Great stuff.

In contrast, 'Light of Desire' introduced us to Ralph, an employee of a nameless, futuristic corporation. In a stark and clinical environment, he waits for some evaluation to take place. As he waits nervously, he starts to spill his deepest fears and desires into the chilly silence. During the course of this stream-of-consciousness monologue it becomes apparent that Ralph is not in fact a human being at all, but a robot who, human-like, is developing emotional responses. Although the play has a 'tragic' ending as Ralph's newly-acquired human emotions clash fatally with his robotic nature the play is hilariously funny with plenty of scope for over-the-top performance!

Technically, the challenge here was to create on no budget at all some special effects that would allow Ralph's unmasking as a machine to be believable - I had two layers of make-up so that I could wipe the flesh colour off to reveal the silver underneath, wires and circuits all over me ready to be exposed, and bags of oil and water beneath my suit (in various strategic places) for the inevitable leaks and blown gaskets! I only wish we could have worked out a way to get steam-jets and sparks!

Again, I also designed the poster for this production...