Nominated: Best Male Performer Brighton Fringe 2007
Fathers Forge Us? 'Tis - Improbable.
Spectre
It was late October, the witching season. Huddled inside the tiny Dartmoor cottage, a timid Jonathan Brown was visited for the first-time by the looming spectre of fatherhood. The spirit asked him questions. Questions that unsettled him, stirring in the deepest bowels of his soul.
What would he do now that Annika, his street theatre co-star was too nauseous with pregnancy to work? How was he going to organise the birth pool, new nappies and wood-chopping and still re-launch a new act? How would he express his own experiences of being a fatherless son in the world?
Whispers
As the winds whispering in the trees awaited his answer, and as he lay in the tepid bath reading Alan Bennett’s "Talking Heads", it came to him, like a bolt: "The Father Monologues." Of course! He would write, and perform, a series of plays so involving that even the most unemotional b**tard would stir in his
(or her) parental bath water.
Treasure
Within weeks he had penned scores of pages, mostly of unusable rubbish. But amongst the chaff, lay treasures, kernels of possibility so brilliant that even he began to smile. A smile so disturbing that he shuddered and turned on the hot tap again.
Written from the perspective of different dads, based in his hometown of Brighton and all with the simple brief that they should, in some way, be improbable, The Father Monologues are at once Jonathan's celebration, and his disturbing scrutiny, of those who play the parent (including himself).
Now, the first two twins of The Father Monologues have had their home-water-birth at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in August 2006 and having gurgled into the Awards Nominations at the Brighton Fringe Festival, in May, they are about to be re-birthed again, in Lewes.
Ghosts
Performed by Jonathan, each monologue follows a different father. First: Danny, a young gambler, fighting pressure to face the four-legged ghosts that ride him hard through life. As he tears up the betting slips of his beer-soaked existence, a surprising winning post looms. The end of everything, or the start point of a whole new world? Then, in Part 2: find your borrowers card to join our next dad, a full-blooded librarian, playing family court judges and illiterate lovers to find honour and realistic literary heroes in a world gone large print and trash-romance mad. Dubious sanity, uncertain identity intertwine with wit, humour, rage... and love
Says Jonathan, 'Want any more, and you’ll have to buy a ticket'.
The plays contain strong language and challenging themes. See them 8pm on 30th Nov and 1st Dec at the Westgate Chapel, High Street, Lewes. Tickets £8 (£6) on the door, or call 01273 473562.
Full information from www.thefathermonologues.com
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(Press release 2)
Brighton Dad Plays
Brighton Dads
Do you consider yourself an individual?
Then unlike most, you'll actually be hoping (whilst staying out late each night at this year's Brighton Fringe Festival) to bump into your Dad.
Now, to raise the odds, ('cos like him, you like a flutter) hang out around Cumberland Road in Brighton on the evenings of the 11th to the 20th May because right there… The Fringe plays host to a good chance of spending …
"90 minutes with the side of your Dad you never knew"
in "The Father Monologues, Parts 1 & 2",
two new dramas written and performed by Jonathan Brown.
Says Brighton-born Jonathan, "My wife Annika, and I were doing street theatre, playing Shakespearean lovers, but we played it too well, she became pregnant, and as fatherhood loomed I decided to create some plays to mark the new unfolding dramas in our lives."
The first play (Danny) plays with the question "How does our own birth experience affect our lives?"
"~a possession of such power and presence that it grabs you~ by the b*lls at first and the heart at the end~"
Danny's a young apathetic gambling lager-drinking chav dad expecting his second child. Fanny, his wife, wants to make this next one a home-birth and her new "Natural Active Childbirth" buddy, Heidi is having a heavy influence on her which Danny hates. Danny's under pressure to seek therapy, to understand his strange behaviour, but he's resistant, to put it politely. His best mate Billy steps in, but not how Danny had hoped. Finally, he's coerced to go... where no Dan has been before ... with surprising and deeply moving results.
"What an absolutely amazing performance. What talent!! I’m quite mind-blown by the whole performance. How can one man do all of that!?" "~completely convincing ~a fine writer and actor, and these are funny, carefully observed character studies." The Scotsman. Edinburgh Fringe 2006
Then in Part 2 – Jenny: Find your borrowers card to join our next protagonist, a full-blooded librarian, playing family court judges and illiterate lovers to find honour and realistic literary heroes in a world gone large print and trash-romance mad. Dubious sanity, uncertain identity intertwine with wit, humour, rage… and love.
"Mind-boggling Genius!! Funny, Touching."
"A feast of good writing and classy acting." Jenny's a Brightonian 40-something librarian.
Lacking much of a love life, she watches people use the library to enhance their fantasy love lives or develop their internet relationships. Then she meets young Billy, starts a physical relationship, and helps him with his "reading". But Jenny is... "unusual", and is fighting a legal battle for access to her own child, Timothy. Despite being denied access, Jenny turns to her ability to shape-shift and falling youth library-attendance figures to engineer an innocent encounter with her son, to tell him what lies in her heart. The ingenious plan, that requires even more wit than even she had expected to employ, enables a veritable host of new and surprising relationships to open up for her. Not least... with herself.
"Funny and deeply touching – I was completely riveted. Excellent!
Best theatre show I have seen in years."
The language is strong, suitable for 13's and over, accompanied by an adult. See either part, or both.
Jonathan Brown Presents
The Father Monologues: Part 1 – Danny 11th, 13th , 15th, 17th, 19th May
The Father Monologues: Part 2 – Jenny 12th, 14th, 16th, 18th, 20th May
8pm (doors 7.45pm)
The Clermont Church and Vestry, Cumberland Road, Brighton.
Tickets £7 (£5) via Dome Box Office, (01273 709709), www.brightonfestivalfringe.org.uk, OR ON THE DOOR. www.thefathermonologues.com
(Press release 3)
Does our Birth Shape our Lives?
Have you ever had Regression therapy? Rebirthing?
Breath work?
Many people involved in the processes of natural active child birth, rebirthing, regression, breathwork and craniosacral therapy understand that the trauma experienced at birth can be one of the greatest impacts on the way we experience and live the rest of our lives.
Now, Brightonian writer and performer Jonathan Brown, plays with the question “How does our birth experience affect our lives?” in his show The Father Monologues, playing at this year’s Brighton Fringe Festival.
Set in Brighton, the two plays follow the adventures of Danny, and Jenny.
Says Brighton-born Jonathan, “I wrote them when my wife became pregnant, and fatherhood loomed.
"~a possession of such power and presence that it grabs you~ by the b*lls at first and the heart at the end~"
Danny's
a young apathetic gambling lager-drinking chav dad expecting his second
child. Fanny, his wife, wants to make this next one a home-birth and
her new "Natural Active Childbirth"
buddy, Heidi is having a heavy influence on her which Danny hates.
Danny's under pressure to seek therapy, to understand his strange
behaviour, but he's resistant, to put it politely. His best mate Billy
steps in, but not how Danny had hoped. Finally, he's coerced to go... where no Dan has been before ... with surprising and deeply moving results.
"What
an absolutely amazing performance. What talent!! I’m quite mind-blown
by the whole performance. How can one man do all of that!?" "~completely convincing ~a fine writer and actor, and these are funny, carefully observed character studies." The Scotsman. Edinburgh Fringe 2006
Then
in Part 2 – Jenny: Find your borrowers card to join our next
protagonist, a full-blooded librarian, playing family court judges and
illiterate lovers to find honour and realistic literary heroes in a
world gone large print and trash-romance mad. Dubious sanity, uncertain
identity intertwine with wit, humour, rage… and love.
"Mind-boggling Genius!! Funny, Touching."
"A feast of good writing and classy acting." Jenny's a Brightonian 40-something librarian.
Lacking
much of a love life, she watches people use the library to enhance
their fantasy love lives or develop their internet relationships. Then
she meets young Billy, starts a physical relationship, and helps him
with his "reading". But Jenny is... "unusual",
and is fighting a legal battle for access to her own child, Timothy.
Despite being denied access, Jenny turns to her ability to shape-shift
and falling youth library-attendance figures to engineer an innocent
encounter with her son, to tell him what lies in her heart. The
ingenious plan, that requires even more wit than even she had expected
to employ, enables a veritable host of new and surprising relationships
to open up for her. Not least... with herself.
"Funny and deeply touching – I was completely riveted. Excellent!
Best theatre show I have seen in years."
The language is strong, suitable for 13's and over, accompanied by an adult. See either part, or both.
Jonathan Brown Presents
The Father Monologues: Part 1 – Danny 11th, 13th , 15th, 17th, 19th May
The Father Monologues: Part 2 – Jenny 12th, 14th, 16th, 18th, 20th May
8pm (doors 7.45pm)
The Clermont Church and Vestry, Cumberland Road, Brighton.
Tickets
£7 (£5) via Dome Box Office, (01273 709709),
www.brightonfestivalfringe.org.uk, OR ON THE DOOR.
www.thefathermonologues.com