Mortgage
"Theatre ain't dead. It just smells funny"
Antonin Artaud
"The three actors perform with unconditional energy and presence"
4****
WHAT
Mortgage (AKA the Filthy, Disgusting and Miserable Beatrice Gunta Mortgage): Lunatic, Murderess, Stage Manager.
Burnt to a crisp, and in the care of two demonic drag-doctors, Mortgage isn't having the best day. As we circumnavigate her miserable, short and terrible life down the corridors of the asylum (Purgatory), where the patients are sane and the doctors are lunatics, the healing is a hell all of it's own.
Mortgage is a horror-farce which draws on theatre of cruelty, slapstick, film noir, magic and violence. Not for the faint-hearted. A collaboration between Created a Monster and the David Glass Ensemble.
This project is the second in the series A Devine Comedy by David Glass.
READ EXCLUSIVE DOCUMENTS COLLATED BY DOCTOR SYSYPHUS ESCALOPOLOS HERE -> MORTGAGE REPAYMENTS
DEVELOPMENT
In January 2016 we R&D'd A Devine Comedy at Trinity Laban, and then scratched it at Soho Theatre. The character of Mortgage grew out of this development. Subsequently, following a long period of research, we were granted funding from Arts Council England; a two-week residency with Collettivo Teatro, Siena; a two-week residency at Theatre Delicatessen, Broadgate; and a week's residency with The Bikeshed, Exeter. Throughout this rich creative process we punctuated our research with showings and began incubating a Theatre of Cruelty workshop.
Mortgage was performed at The Pleasance, Islington as part of HeadFirst's festival of Sex, love and Death 2017, on the 28th October. It was performed as part of a double bill with opera singer Oskar McCarthy.
In March 2018 Mortgage was performed at Omnibus Theatre, Clapham. In Spring 2019 Mortgage toured to SYCHRONO THEATRO, ATHENS; TRISTAN BATES THEATRE FOR VOILA! EUROPEAN THEATRE FESTIVAL, LONDON and GRUSOMHETENS TEATER, OSLO
“Bristling with a Rottweiler-level energy. Brilliantly powerful.” (4 Stars)
- Spy in the Stalls
“Weird. Poetic. Horrific. Hilarious.”
- Paul Arditti
“Powerful, visceral, insane, tender, disgusting.”
- Thomas Bostock, Gruff Theatre
“Fantastic... my heartiest recommendation is to check them out”
- Teaterungdom (Oslo)
In Spring 2021 we were invited to a residency at the Grotowski Institute, Poland, where we made a film reincarnation of Mortgage in the forest at Brzezinka with international practitioner and collaborator Matej Matejka. The film is currently in process, and should be available to view by the end of 2021.
Director David Glass
Considered one of the world’s leading theatre practitioners, David Glass has worked as a performer, director and teacher in over 70 countries. His creative practice is the centre ofthis ‘Devising’ process and it is used by the United Nations, The Chinese Ministry of Education and in numerous Arts Universities and Theatre Companies around the world. He is one of the founders and key exponents of the Physical Theatre movement influencing artists such as Simon McBurney, Mike Alfreds, Amit Lahav, Liam Steele, Kathryn Hunter and Tom Morris to name a few.
“David Glass is one of the world’s great theatre teachers.” Mike Alfreds, Theatre Director (RCS, National Theatre, The Globe, Founder of Shared Experience)
“David is one of the great teachers and artists of our time who has never been afraid to examine truth in all its manifestations; both beautiful and ugly.” Amit Lahav (Gecko Theatre)
David worked as a soloist performing in forty countries before establishing the David Glass Ensemble in 1990 and winning international awards including TMA award for best director for his adaptation of Gormenghast.
Cast
François Testory
François Testory started his career as a dancer training at Mudra the Maurice Béjart School of Performing Arts. He then joined the legendary Lindsay Kemp Company, soon becoming one of its principal members and remains one of his collaborators to this day. He has collaborated with many diverse companies such as Gecko, Ballet Rambert, Rose English, Simon Vincenzi, DV8 Physical Theatre, Punchdrunk and many more. He also sings with Medieval Polyphony ensemble Graindelavoix, Electro Group Coil, Laniakea.
Simon Gleave
Simon is an actor and deviser who also writes. He trained for two years at the École Internationale deThéâtre Jacques Lecoq before receiving his MA Acting from Drama Centre, London. He directed,devised and performed the original, award winning clown play Halapatooloo at the Toronto FringeFestival, continues to work with Gooddog Theatre on Poetry House Live, played Gregor Samsa inTheatrical Niche's tour of Berkoff's Metamorphosis and with Tooth+Nail in Parlour Games. He is writingand directing Let Go Home, a piece of multi-disciplinary theatre with an international company and isviolently ecstatic to collaborate with Created a Monster on projects Mortgage and Conspiracy of Orphans.
Briony O'Callaghan
Briony is a theatre-maker, director, performer and movement director. She trained at Ecole Jacques Lecoq, Paris for two years (2012-2014). In 2017 she co-created Mortgage with Created a Monster and David Glass Ensemble (ACE-supported R&D and EU/London tour 2019). In 2018 she devised for and performed in Flabbergast’s The Swell Mob (Edinburgh Fringe, five-star reviews/Editor’s Choice award). In 2019 she co-devised Babel's The Fall; movement directed SWIM with Liz Richardson (ACE-funded) and trained in Butoh with Daisuke Yoshimoto (Grotowski Institute). As a performer she has worked with companies including the BBC, Vamos, Gruff, RiFT, Mark Bell (The Play That Goes Wrong), Making Faces Theatre and Turtle Key Arts. She regularly teaches and directs in the UK and internationally. In 2019 she directed Not About Nightingales for the Charlie Waller Trust (a male suicide prevention charity) and The Love of the Nightingale for Salford University. In 2020 she trained with Matej Matejka (The Grotowski Institute); assistant directed and choreographed Margot Monroe’s Nibelungenlied (RADA, MA Theatre Lab); directed The Yellow Wallpaper at Rose Bruford; and directed R&D (ACE-funded) for CAM's Unforgettable Girl with artist Elisabeth Gunawan, a neo-bouffon piece looking in an irreverent way at destabilising white fragility and the male gaze upon female bodies of colour. She is currently working on CAM project Conspiracy of Orphans; Babel’s The Fall; and co-devising Flabbergast’s Macbeth alongside teaching Bouffon at East 15 and various other projects. She is artistic director of Created a Monster and associate artist with the David Glass Ensemble, Flabbergast and Babel.
