November 2011 to January 2012 | New Writing Season

RIGOR MORTIS

by Carol Vine

Tuesday, 13 December to Sunday, 18 December 2011

The World Premiere as part of The Papatango New Writing Festival 2011

"And each nail driving me closer to the end. And my heart breaking. And I don't tell her that either."

After years of absence, Martin returns, a middle-aged, quietly broken man, to visit his parents in the house he grew up in. The fraught relations between Martin and Layla, the daughter he abandoned many years before, echo Martin's conflicted history with his own past, which he must now confront - along with the childhood event that shaped the course of his life. In this ugly coastal town, through a bitterly cold spring, extraordinary things happen to normal people as they struggle to find meaning and redemption in their lives.

ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT CAROL VINE

Playwright Carol Vine originally trained as an actor at Rose Bruford College, before deciding to devote herself fully to writing. She later gained an MA in Screenwriting at the University of the Arts, London. She has been short-listed and long-listed for various awards in the past, including the Kings Cross New Playwriting Award, BBC Talent, Channel 4's Coming Up and the Red Planet Prize. She has also had two short films made, Rise and Irreparable - showcased in the West End and at Clapham Picture House. Carol has written treatments for the musicals Zorro and Always Summer for Adam Kenwright Associates and International Theatre and Music. Her other plays include a one-woman show, Whore, which was commissioned for the Tabard Theatre, a musical The TrashChrist performed at the Soho Theatre, and an excerpt from her adaptation of Pegwell Bay performed at the Jermyn Street Theatre and the Rocliffe Forum. Carol recently completed a new play, Borderland, and a sitcom pilot.

ABOUT THE DIRECTOR KATE BUDGEN

Director Kate Budgen completed an MFA in Theatre Directing at Birkbeck College in 2007 and has been Associate Director at Shropshire based Pentabus Theatre since 2008. Recent directing includes Crossed Keys (Eastern Angles), A New Breed (Jersey Arts Trust), May Fair (Latitude Festival), Tales of the Country (National Tour for Pentabus Theatre), Miriam Gonzalez Durantez (Theatre 503) and Bedbound (Lion and Unicorn Theatre). She has worked as an Assistant Director for The Gate Theatre, Almeida Theatre, The Opera Group, Pentabus Theatre and for Opera North. She completed the National Theatre Studio Director Course in May 2010 and she is a Creative Associate at the Bush Theatre. She was runner up in the 2010 JMK Director Award with The Hairy Ape which will be produced in 2012.

THE PRESS ON CAROL VINE

"Her writing constantly takes you by surprise, draws you in...Strong and provocative...intrigue and a heavy does of sexual tension that continues to shatter any preconceived notions of what we are watching." WhatsOnStage on Whore

ABOUT THE CAST

Janet Amsden
Theatre includes The Boy Friend (Her Majesty’s Theatre), Random Acts of Strangers (Courtyard Theatre), The Chairs (Bath Theatre Royal), Single Numbers Only (King's Head Theatre), They Have Oak Trees in North Carolina (Tristan Bates Theatre and Theatre 503), The Waiting Game (New Sounds Theatre), Oliver (Marlowe Theatre, Canterbury), Richard III (Greenwich Theatre), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Bristol Old Vic and The Old Vic), All’s Well That Ends Well (Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester), Dr Faustus and Daisy Pulls it Off (Duke's Playhouse, Lancaster), Dead Soil (Haymarket Theatre, Leicester), Animal Farm (National Theatre), Kathie and The Hippopotamus (Almeida Theatre), Filumena (Library Theatre, Manchester), Lulu (Newcastle Playhouse), Widowers Houses and Coriolanus (Liverpool Everyman) and Schippell, Dream Play, The Exception and Rule and The Measures Taken (Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh). Film includes Getting It Right, Children of Icarus, Hussy and Violent Summer. Television includes Doctors, The Bill, Hotel Babylon, EastEnders, Casualty, Spooks, Family Affairs, Down to Earth, Big Kids, Belfry Witches, Cold War, Daylight Robbery, Big Women, The King of Chaos, Dangerfield, Shine On Harvey Moon, Partisans, Between The Lines, Grange Hill, Crown Court, Blind Justice, Eleanor Marx and Target.

Max Gold
Theatre includes Othello, The Dillen, Mary After the Queen, The Two Noble Kinsmen, Flight, Worlds Apart, A Midsummer Night's Dream (Royal Shakespeare Company), Johnny Johnson (Lilian Baylis Theatre at Sadler's Wells), Love Bites (Resurgence Theatre Company), Vex (Half Moon Theatre), Les Liaisons Dangereuses (English Theatre, Frankfurt), Dreyfus (Tricycle Theatre), The Story of Jude (Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond), Cider with Rose (York Theatre Royal), Our Country’s Good, Hamlet, The Caucasian Chalk Circle (Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh), Othello, Rope, Volpone (Birmingham Rep) and Flight (Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith). Film includes Suzie Gold, Inferno and The Commissioner. Television includes EastEnders, Rosemary and Thyme, Holby City, William and Mary, Swag, The Bill, Bergerac and Dangerfield.

Rupert Simonian
Theatre includes Three Kingdom, Punk Rock and A Thousand Stars Explode In The Sky (Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith), Mums (Soho Theatre) and Lifesavers (Mercury Theatre, Colchester, and Theatre 503). Film includes The Boys Are Back In Town, Keeping Mum, The Constant Gardener, Piccadilly Jim and Peter Pan. Television includes Appropriate Adult, Hidden, The Bill, Doctors, Ashes To Ashes, The Impressions Show with Jon Culshaw and Debra Stephenson, Holby City, Murderland, Lifebites and Not Going Out.

David Whitworth
Theatre includes London Assurance (National Theatre), The Thunderbolt, Mary Goes First, Double Double, Trifles and King Lear (Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond), Romeo and Juliet, Much Ado About Nothing and Twelfth Night (Open Air Theatre, Regent's Park), Wuthering Heights (Birmingham Rep), As You Like It (Nottingham Playhouse) and The Mousetrap (St. Martin’s Theatre). Film includes Love’s Kitchen and Little Dorrit. Television includes The Bill and Nicholas Nickleby

Eleanor Wyld
Trained at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Theatre includes His Teeth (Only Connect Theatre), Antigone (Southwark Playhouse), The Deep Blue Sea (West Yorkshire Playhouse) and Romeo and Juliet (Brighton Dome). Film Includes Johnny English Reborn, The Manual and Freestyle. Television includes Black Mirror – The National Anthem, Casualty, Honest, You Can Choose Your Friends and Coronation Street.