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Spymonkey, Cooped
Premiere Dance Theatre
March 5-14
Cooped
SPYMONKEY with their dark, edgy physical comedy rooted ‘somewhere
between Monty Python, the Marx Brothers and Samuel Beckett’ (The Houston
Chronicle), and a quartet of performers from Spain, Germany and England,
Spymonkey have proved to be a truly international phenomenon, enjoyed by and
accessible to a wide range of international audiences. The cultural and linguistic
diversity of the group, and their unique blend of physical comedy and explosive
surrealism has won them a deserved international reputation: at the time of
writing they have performed in 17 countries from the US, Canada and Mexico to
Syria and Taiwan. International promoters spotted early on the opportunity that
Spymonkey’s work offers: original work that simultaneously represents the best
in contemporary British theatre and rich comic entertainment. In the words of
Patrick Brazier, head of the British Council in Damascus, Spymonkey are a
‘superlative example to the world that there is more to British theatrical culture
than just Shakespeare.’
Company History
1997 Aitor, Petra and Toby meet while working with the Swiss action-theatre
group Karl’s Kühne Gassenschau in Zürich. Atop a mountain in France they
conceive Spymonkey and set about fi nding a director. In December they work
for a week with inspirational comedy director Cal McCrystal at the Central School
of Speech and Drama in London.
1998 ‘Stiff’ is created with writer/director Cal McCrystal over 6 weeks at the tiny
Actors’ Creative Training Studio in Brighton, and premieres at the Komedia
Theatre Brighton on December 14th. It briefl y tours England and Switzerland.
2000 In April Stephan Kreiss joins the company. A reworked ‘Stiff’ tours
Switzerland, Austria and the UK. One of the hits of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival,
it wins wide critical acclaim and a Total Theatre Award.
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2001 ‘Stiff’ plays at the Purcell Room as part of the London Mime Festival and at
the Riverside Studios London; the US Comedy Festival Aspen and Houston
Texas (winner of the Houston Press Award, best touring show 2001); the British
Council Showcase Edinburgh; tours to Hungary, Finland, Spain, Mexico, France,
Ireland and Syria. ‘Cooped’, created with writer/director Cal McCrystal, opens for
a sell-out run at the Edinburgh Fringe and tours UK.
2002 ‘Cooped’ performs at the Purcell Room as part of the London Mime
Festival, at BAC London and tours Hungary and Finland. ‘Stiff’ tours to Canada,
Taiwan, Romania, Czech Republic, Greece, France; Double Bill at the
Paramount Comedy Festival, Brighton.
2003 Double Bill at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London Mime Festival; Rehearsals
for ‘Zumanity - Another side of Cirque du Soleil’ in Montreal and Las Vegas.
Shooting of a Spymonkey episode of Cirque Images’ ‘Solstrom’ series for Bravo
Cable Network; ‘Zumanity’ opens in its own purpose-built theatre at the New
York-New York Hotel & Casino, Las Vegas, on August 14th.
2004 ‘Zumanity’ continues its run in Las Vegas. The feature length documentary
‘Lovesick’, about the creation of ‘Zumanity’, by Emmy-Award-winner Lewis
Cohen, has its theatrical release.
Program Description
Spymonkey present a newly extended version of their deliciously demented take
on the pulp gothic novella.
The great English tragedian Forbes Murdston brings together Spanish soap star
Alfredo Gravés, German Expressionist Udo Keller and pop diva Mandy Bandy to
do battle over the soul of Murdston'
s romantic drama.
The action takes place some time in the 1960s at Birch End, the dilapitated
ancient seat of the Murdstons.
A misty night.
A young girl arrives at a remote railway station in the heart of darkest
Northumberlandshirehampton to take up her position as confidential secretary to
the reclusive Forbes Murdston. Beautiful, fawn-like, swinging, but a hostage to
passion, Laura knows now that life - and love - will never be the same again...
...And her an orphan!
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She has ignored for as long as she can the unsettling rumours that surround her
new employer, his ominous manservant Klaus and the ancient mansion. But
Murdston’s violent moodswings can only signify one thing: INSANITY!
Her terrible dreams seem to warn of some impending calamity. If only she could
get word to Inspector Judadench to warn him. In her desperation she turns to the
trusty family lawyer Roger Parchment. How can she leave Forbes now, now that
he is so close to finishing his memoirs? How can she leave him when she has
grown to love him?
Yes, now... now she is truly... COOPED!
Show History
Cooped was originally developed with writer-director Cal McCrystal and designer
Lucy Bradridge in the spring of 2001 at Riverside Studios and BAC in London,
and Teatro Ticino in Switzerland. It premiered at the Komedia Brighton on 17th
July 2001, and enjoyed a rapturous reception at the Edinburgh Festival that
summer.
Its ensuing UK tour confirmed the show as a favourite amongst audiences and
critics alike. Performances have included London Mime Festival and Brighton
Paramount Comedy Festival in 2002 and at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in 2003,
and toured internationally to Ireland, Hungary, Finland and Switzerland with
support from the British Council.
Following their residency in ZUMANITY - ANOTHER SIDE OF CIRQUE DU
SOLEIL in Las Vegas, in October 2005 Spymonkey created an extended 2-act
version of the show at the One Yellow Rabbit Performance Theatre in Calgary
Canada. This show, redesigned for medium-scale venues, is currently on an
international tour which includes Arosa Comedy Festival, the Coronet Theatre
Athens, Sydney Opera House, Melbourne Comedy Festival, Brighton Festival
and Edinburgh Festival.
BIOGRAPHIES & CREDITS
Biography
Aitor Basuri (joint artistic director & performer)
studied at the Centro Andaluz de Teatro in Seville and at the Philippe Gaulier
School in London. Performed in The Servant of Two Masters at Sheffield
Crucible (1996), Axomate at the Seville Expo (1992), Eulenspiegel (1991) and
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in Karl’s Kuhne Gassenchau’s Grand Paradis and Stau in Zurich (1997 and
1998). Director of Little Prince for Donkey Productions (1997), Un Vento
Impetuoso for La Canoppia (1996) and Meci Y Me Fui for Pez Enraya ( 1997).
In 1999 he appeared in Circus Knie, the Swiss State Circus, and in 2000 formed
his own company Punto Fijo, based in Bilbao. Appeared in Cirque Images’ 2003
series Solstrom for Bravo Cable Network.
Petra Massey (joint artistic director & performer)
BA (Hons) in Performing Arts at Middlesex University. Trained with Philippe
Gaulier and John Wright in London. Worked extensively in street theatre and
stand-up around the world, before forming her own company and performing her
successful one-woman show Panic in Canada, New Zealand and the UK.
Directed and performed with Mamaloucos in Mama Loves Ya (1996) and in the
same year joined Karl’s Kuhne Gassenchau for Grand Paradis (1997),
S.T.E.I.N.B.R.U.C.H (1997), and Stau (1998) in Switzerland. In 1999 she
appeared with Circus Knie, and in 2000 trained and worked with De La Guarda
at The Roundhouse, London. Appeared in Cirque Images’ 2003 series Solstrom
for Bravo Cable Network.
Toby Park (joint artistic director & performer)
BA (Hons) in Drama at Hull University. Trained at Fool Time Circus School,
Bristol, and with Philippe Gaulier and Monika Pagneaux in Paris. From 1994-97
he was co-musical director and actor with Karl’s Kuhne Gassenchau in Zurich,
creating with them S.T.E.I.N.B.R.U.C.H (1994-7), R.U.P.T.U.R.E (1995) and
Grand Paradis (1997). Played Othello in BAC Walking Orchestra’s Othello
Music (1999). Improvising musician on Improbable Theatre’s Lifegame (1998)
with an off-Broadway run in 2000, and Animo (1999), . Musical director and
composer for: Guy Dartnell’s Would Say Something (1998), winner of the Time
Out Best of the Fringe Award ‘98; Circus Space shows Investments (1999) and
The Event (1999) with the Millennium Dome aerial performers; acro-dancetheatre Mimbre’s Sprung (2001) and Trip-Tic (2003). Appeared in Cirque
Images’ 2003 series Solstrom for Bravo Cable Network.
Stephan Kreiss (performer).
Joined Spymonkey in 2000. Trained with Philippe Gaulier and Monika Pagneux
and with Atelier International de l’Acteur (Paris 1987/88). Theatre credits include
Notfalls Belau and The Pool for YBY in Salzburg; Hello, We Must Be Going
and The Marx Brothers with Jos Houben and Johnny Hutch; Penny Dreadful
for the Right Size; Notre Dame de Paris, La Tulipe Noir and Tale of Two Cities
for Theatre Sans Frontieres. Tours as Der Legendäre Lustige in Germany and
Austria with his one-man-show Hilfe - Ich Bin Unsterblich. Appeared in Cirque
Images’ 2003 series Solstrom for Bravo Cable Network.
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Cal McCrystal (writer/director)
Trained at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music & Drama and with Philippe
Gaulier and Pierre Byland. Has worked frequently as an actor in television,
theatre, film and radio. Directing credits include Let the Donkey Go, I’m a
Coffee and Horses for Courses for Peepolykus; Between a Rock and a Hard
Place, and This Way Up for Cambridge Footlights; The Mighty Boosh (Perrier
Best New Comedy Award Winners 1998, now a BBC TV series) and AutoBoosh
(2000); Mel & Sue’s Back to our Roots Tour (1999); Peggy Lee (2000) and
Music to Watch Boys By (2001) by Kate Dimbleby; Your Name Here’s
Gladiatrix (2002); Loot (2003) by Joe Orton and Kafka’s Dick (2004) by Alan
Bennett for Derby Playhouse. Director of Clowns for Cirque du Soleil’s Varekai
(2002) and Zumanity (2003). Director of Comedy for Cirque Images’ 2003 series
Solstrom for Bravo Cable Network.
Lucy Bradridge (production design)
BA English Literature from Leeds University; Postgraduate Diploma in Advanced
Theatre Practice at Central School of Speech and Drama. Has designed
numerous theatre and comedy shows including Wizard of Oz by Dog Theatre
(1997); Between a Rock and a Hard Place (1998) and This Way Up (1999) by
the Cambridge Footlights; the Mel & Sue Back to our Roots tour (1999); the
Opn Mike Award for Avalon Productions (2000-2002); AutoBoosh (2000);
Snowbound (1999) at the Etcetera London; Kate Dimbleby’s Peggy Lee (2000)
and Music to Watch Boys By (2001); and The Last Chancers (2003) comedy
series for Angel Eye TV/Channel 4.
Credits
Created by: Cal McCrystal, Aitor Basauri, Stephan Kreiss, Petra Massey, Toby Park
Director: Cal McCrystal
Production design: Lucy Bradridge
Technical manager & lighting : Petter Skramstad
Stage manager: Angela Weiss
Technical assistant: Roger Volkart
Design consultant: Graeme Gilmour
Incidental music & sound design: Toby Park
'4xinLove'written & produced by Neil Filby & Toby Park 2001
Diva remix by Jean-François Houle
guest vocalist Corinne Zarzour
'Mr Sandman'original composition by Pat Ballard 1954
Production: Toby Park & Jean-François Thibeault
Drums: Larry Aberman
Double bass: Simon Dolan
Piano: Eliot Douglass
Love Sounds th'Alarm by GF Handel
Harpsichord: Peter McCarthy
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Voice coaches: Peter Bugler & Eliot Douglass
Video production: Lorna Heavey
Cameraman: James Nutt
Video nun: Zoe Bywater
Choreography: Laetitia Thackeray
Photographs: David O'
Driscoll, Bernhard Fuchs, Tork, Sean Dennie
Graphic design: Tork
management: Kathy Bourne
1st UK Performance: 17th July 2001, Komedia Brighton
REVIEWS
The Montreal Gazette | July 13, 2007| Anne Sutherland | 598 words
Fart jokes and all, this fun is high art
I walked out of the Centaur Theatre on Wednesday night with absolutely no idea
what I had just seen, but smiling all the same.
Spymonkey'
s Cooped is one bizarre theatrical performance but it is engaging,
ridiculous and very, very funny.
This ensemble, comprising a Spaniard, a German and two Brits, have been
together since 2000 and have conceived and performed not only Cooped but
another show called Stiff and were part of Cirque du Soleil'
s adult Vegas act
Zumanity. That should give you a clue that they aren'
t shy about doffing their
duds on stage.
Spymonkey'
s Cooped is part of the Just for Laughs comedy festival and judging
by the audience reaction (a standing O), it could be a crowd favourite this year.
It helps if you are a fan of the sitcom, early comedy acts and Pink Panther
movies if you are to get the many sight gags and references, but not entirely
necessary.
Elements of The Three Stooges, Fawlty Towers, gothic soaps, British bedroom
farce and some song and dance choreography la Monty Python are all rolled into
one in this performance that defies description, but here'
s the gist:
A pretty young girl, Laura du Lay, arrives at a remote country manor in England.
There she meets attractive but seemingly disturbed Forbes Murdston, an upperclass twit. He has an ominous butler, Klaus, who bears a striking resemblance to
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Bull from Night Court. There'
s a lawyer, Roger Parchment, whose accent is
vintage Clouseau. An Inspector Detective Judadench, an Italian bishop and three
ultra-conservative Jews are also along for the ride.
Laura falls for Forbes but there are complications. Klaus hates Parchment and
insults him at every turn. The three Jews are part of a dream sequence. And the
bishop? Who knows what that'
s all about, but his ring-kissing routine brought
down the house, including his fellow actor who could barely keep a straight face.
There are four actor/comedians playing these parts and all are gifted. Petra
Massey is a very acrobatic Laura, Stephen Kreiss is a hysterical Klaus, right
down to the John Cleese German soldier routine. Toby Park plays Forbes as a
fey, young Christopher Plummer look-alike and does a funny turn as a fig-leafed
sprite.
Stealing the show, but only by a tiny bit, is Aitor Basauri as
Parchment/Judadench/the bishop.
Comparisons can be made to Peter Sellers in Basauri'
s performance but he also
resembles a beefier and butchier Kevin Spacey. He endures all manner of kicks
to the groin, bird droppings on his head and numerous swipes of his toupEe.
There are also fart jokes and a Ping-Pong bit right out of Priscilla Queen of the
Desert.
It sounds very puerile and it is, but these comedians make it work. The staging is
done in such a way that the audience is in on the joke and at certain times the
actors speak right to the paying customers.
It ain'
t high art but it is highly entertaining. You owe it to yourself to just sit back
and laugh.
Spymonkey is at the Centaur Theatre, 453 St. FrancoisXavier St., tonight to
Sunday and July 17 to 22 at 7:30 p.m. For info, 514-845-2322 or
www.hahaha.com [http://www.hahaha.com].
The Times | August 5, 2006| Lucy Powell | 1264 words
Leaving Las Vegas> Interview> Spymonkey> Stage
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After three years in '
Sin City'
, Spymonkey are bringing it all -minus prosthetic
penises -back home, says Lucy Powell
I can honestly say I don'
t miss any of it," says Spymonkey'
s Petra Massey of her
company'
s most bizarre adventure to date. "The swimming pools, maybe, the
parties, never, the prosthetic penises we had to leave behind, well yes. Other
than that, all I can say is that we'
re really, really happy to be home, and we can'
t
wait for Edinburgh."
Spymonkey are back at the festival, after an enigmatic hiatus of five years, with
an extended version of Cooped. A determinedly ridiculous spoof of a Gothic
novella, in which a strange, introverted genius, Forbes Murdstone, and his clique
of oddball European staff, welcome a passionate, innocent young woman into
their malevolent fold, Cooped earned the foursome rapturous critical acclaim and
a global tour when it first hit the festival in 2001.
It was also the springboard for a three-year residency in Las Vegas, performing
with one of the largest entertainment companies in North America: the seemingly
unstoppable Cirque du Soleil. "They asked our director, Cal McCrystal, to direct
the clowns for their adult, erotic show, Zumanity," explains Massey'
s chiselled,
deadpan cohort Toby Park, sheepishly. "And we were his first choice." McCrystal
has been with the company since its inception, directing and co-devising its first
show, Stiff, which opened in Edinburgh in 2000. Together with European
counterparts Aitor Basauri and Stephan Kreiss, Spymonkey earned themselves
a Total Theatre award for their demented, neatly choreographed clowning antics,
strung together on the loosest of funereal plots, which they developed for
Cooped the following year.
"And then Cal asked us to go to Vegas," Park explains. "We thought really
carefully about it but we weren'
t all that worried, because we'
d be working with
him. We didn'
t know what we were getting ourselves into when we said yes."
Vegas is the fastest-growing city in America; the second fastest in the world.
It'
s a town in which the New York skyline and the Eiffel Tower have been recreated as hotels, or, in Vegasese, "entertainment complexes" replete with a
choice of thousand-seat theatres, spas, and tier upon tier of 24-hour casinos. It
seems an unlikely home for a downbeat European fringe company who met in a
circus in Switzerland and devised Stiff atop a French mountain.
Listening to their tales of tacky, superficial glamour and backstage agony, it
seems that Vegas proved the best and the worst of times for the company.
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Rehearsing in the enormous Cirque du Soleil complex in Montreal was,
according to Massey, "the time of our lives. We came up with some of our best
material ever and the sets they built us were just mind-blowing."
Then a month before they were due to open, "They fired the producer who had
brought us over. It became a horrible, horrible experience," Park winces at the
memory. "Nobody creatively understood what we were trying to do or liked us at
all. They'
d spent thousands of dollars on these sketches that were ready to go,
really funny, silly stuff, and then they just came by one day and cut it all. Just like
that."
"We had two weeks to prepare. They threw us on stage with nothing." Massey
chips in: "There we were, in this $70 million theatre in Vegas, improvising our
a**** off in front of all these VIPs they'
d invited for the opening."
And? "We bombed," Park replies calmly. "Not just us," Massey adds. "The whole
show died. They fired so many people they didn'
t have a finale, so they used our
pompom routine. It'
s a good piece, but it'
s not a finale for a big Vegas show. Four
fat ugly Europeans coming on with pompoms, in the nude."
"We didn'
t know quite how fat and ugly we were until we got to Vegas," says
Park. "It took us time to get the energy right and to understand the audience. It
sounds like a cliche to say that Middle America doesn'
t get irony, but we found
out that it'
s true.
Unfortunately we found that out on stage in front of thousands of people."
By the end of their two years, they felt they had a great show. "And the sketches
Cirque cut because they thought they were too rude were way tamer than what
we did at the end," says Massey. "We were absolutely filthy, but the audience
loved it."
It seems amazing that a town dubbed Sin City might raise an eyebrow at the
antics of four fat, ugly Europeans, but, Park explains: "One of the paradoxes of
Vegas is that sexual morality is enforced by the Nevada Liquor Board: you'
re not
allowed to be nude if there'
s alcohol served on the premises."
"For our pompom routine I fought tooth and nail for us to be naked, but no way,"
explains Massey. "So at vast Cirque du Soleil expense the boys had to have
these prosthetic penises while I had to wear a merkin, a little G-string made of
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someone else'
s pubic hair. Sometimes real penises would pop out and
everybody would get all jittery because the show could be closed down."
It wasn'
t, and, as an impressive array of celebrity snaps proves, Spymonkey
moved in the very best of Vegas circles. Pamela Anderson, Duran Duran, Bette
Midler and Demi Moore were, Park says, "absolutely horrified to meet us. All the
beautiful people they'
d actually come backstage to invite to their parties were still
in makeup, so they got us. We were never in the cool gang."
"We tried," Massey counters, "but it never really worked." And when at the end of
the two years Cirque offered them another contract, "none of us batted an eyelid
turning all that money down," Massey says. "It'
s not worth it. It'
s too mad." Park
reflects: "We had a great time, and the weirdness of the environment really pulled
us together as a group. But it wasn'
t the right place for us at all. You spend years
trying to scrape by with no money and you think if only we had a bit more we
could do all the things we wanted. But we found out that money doesn'
t help,
sometimes it'
s actively a hindrance."
The new Cooped, Park promises, is very much Spymonkey business as usual.
The previews we'
ve done of it in Brighton were just incredible. We thought we'
d
be forgotten in England, but in fact there'
s a huge amount of support for us here.
We really felt we were coming back to our roots."
In December, the company starts work on its new show, Bless, about the lives of
the saints. The costume budget will be a pittance compared to what they had at
Cirque du Soleil, but no one is complaining: "There'
s one new scene in Cooped
which Cirque cut from Zumanity," Massey explains. "They'
d built us this insanely
expensive set and then just axed it. Well, we couldn'
t keep any of the props, but
do you know what? We'
ve built something for about a fiver which works just as
well."
Park nods in agreement: "That'
s the Spymonkey method."
WEBSITE
http://www.spymonkey.co.uk/coopedhome.html
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