Golem

Created and performed by Nenagh Watson
Live film and image manipulation by Rachael Field
Music by Sylvia Hallett
Consultant Direction Mark Civil, Faynia Williams
Producer Jane Corry

In the sixteenth century Prague Ghetto, a ’living man’ was made from clay to protect the Jews from persecution. It was the Golem, the legend that has inspired doo-cot’s new show.

Nenagh Watson, co artistic director of doo-cot, has taken Gustav Meyrink’s book entitled The Golem as a starting point. Fragments of H Leivick’s 1921 play The Golem are also to be used to explore doo-cot’s response to the cabbalistic myth of this creature which has struck terror into peoples hearts for centuries and has become the subject of intense fascination and scrutiny. The Golem has become an abiding myth that has inhabited novels and films explicitly and implicitly. It continues to reverberate today, featuring in everything from computer games to academia.

Music composed and performed by Sylvia Hallett, whose previous theatre work includes the Young Vic’s Grimm Tales, and the RSC’s Comedy of Errors and Tales from Ovid.

doo-cot’s artistic directors Nenagh Watson and Rachael Field founded doo-cot in 1991, producing devised performances, installations, exhibitions and films. Much of their work deals with the tensions between an ancient past and a highly technological future. Nenagh is fascinated by the notion of the Golem not wanting life and will use her puppetry skills to add resonance to this and other elements of the myth. For this production she is working with antique puppets including those of the late Punch professor Joe Beeby and 18th century puppets from Prague. The show features original film footage of Prague which will be mixed live during the performance by Rachael Field. Cutting edge technology and electronic imaging alongside a magic lantern and lots of puppets.

A VJ gig Passion Superhighway, originally created for the Vienna International Puppet Festival, performed by Rachael Field & Sylvia Hallett will be performed at Scarborough & Zion Centre, Manchester, where they will mix and edit in digital & analogue sounds and pictures from the development of the Golem

doo-cot’s incredible image banks are brought to this VJ event as their
innovative visual imagery travels through realtime media highways. Rachael
Field’s trademark pixel blocks and paint marks - high definition and the
raw collide and compliment the musical journeys of Sylvia Hallett with her instruments and powerbook.

One artist -and one musician cross the digital divide and find
their way out again. Back up your data, -a laptop performance not to be
missed.

The show will be suitable for everyone over the age of 15.

For further information please contact Jane Corry on janecorry@artsmanagement.freeserve.co.uk

Golem Autumn 2003 Tour
Quotes

‘doo-cot is a company that over the years has often breathed life into the inert and here that art becomes multi-layered and full of resonance as puppetry, video technology and animation and life performance collide to tell the story of the Golem…Its melding of the dreams and nightmares both of the mind and reality and its mixture of different mediums make it beautiful to watch and hear…’
Review Lyn Gardner, The Guardian
Friday October 24, 2003

‘A labour of love from the inspired doo-cot company, Golem, a one-woman show created & performed by versatile actress & puppeteer Nenagh Watson, succeeds as a heartfelt testimony to mortality’s awesome sway..The show combines doo -cot’s technological know-how with their knack for traditional story telling….See this show for proof of just how grown up puppet shows can be’

Review Helena Thompson - What’s On
October 29 2003.