After reviewing Renske Mann’s memoir The Girl in the Green Jumper a year ago, I am delighted to see it come to the stage in Gail Louw’s dramatisation.
I asked Renske and Gail to tell us more about the play, the process, and the subject.
Where; Playground Theatre
When: 13-24 Mar
Ticket link: https://www.theplaygroundtheatre.org.uk/event-details/the-girl-in-the-green-jumper-by-gail-louw-2024-03-19-19-30
In this first part, we hear from Renske Mann:
How does it feel to see yourself and your life on stage?
I haven’t given it a thought!
Why not?
Three reasons: working closely with Gail, my focus was on getting Cyril right, as I remembered his language, his art explanations, his tormented personality, physical and mental pains caused by his lack of recognition….
My second reason was that it took some time to find the right actor to fill my role. Until she was definitely cast about three weeks ago, I couldn’t visualise what she would even look like.
Friends had urged: “Whatever happens, make sure that there is a ‘foreign element’ in the girl you choose.
This advice came from people who ‘knew’: David Aukin (head of film at Channel 4 1990-1998) and his wife, Nancy Meckler (the first female director invited to direct at the National Theatre).
Only now, with three-week rehearsals starting tomorrow, with the beautiful and talented Natalie Ava Nasr cast to play me, can I imagine my own role in this play… and try to put it at the back of my mind, so as not to scare myself. Que sera, sera, Cyril would have said.
The third, and possibly most important reason is an art historical one: there have been in the past only ever three ‘muses’ who wrote books about their artists.
The only woman brave enough to dump Picasso, after bearing him two illegitimate children, was Francoise Gilot (1921-2023).
The second and more recent muse was Celia Paul, writing about her relationship with another hugely successful painter, Lucian Freud. Her title Self Portrait is a give-away.
Both Francoise and Celia were fine artists in their own right. They had much to gain from loving rich, highly influential and successful painters.
I’m the third muse to write a memoir about my life with an artist. Unlike Picasso and Freud, Cyril Mann (1911-1980) was dirt poor.
He never used a studio and swam ‘against the stream’ all his life, refusing to pander to fashion, belong to a ‘School’ or follow an ‘Ism’.
It’s important to remember that I was never an artist myself (unlike my predecessors, Gilot and Paul).
I never wanted to be an artist myself and for the first 10 years of the two decades we spent together, I ‘subjugated myself’ to my husband, because I was convinced of his genius and could not understand why other people thought otherwise.
Therefore, it is essential to know that – as a pretty youngster, just out of my teens – I had nothing to gain from falling in love with Cyril. But it should also be remembered that our relationship, right from the start, was no ‘one-way street’.
Cyril was nearly thirty years my senior. Only a handful of people are still alive who knew him, and none as intimately as I did.
My obsession with him and his art persists 44 years after he died. After I had an accident, which landed me in a wheelchair, I looked up at the portrait he had painted of me sixty years earlier.
I’m thrilled that Gail has written a play based on my memoir. She has chosen to present ‘The Girl in the Green Jumper’ as one of four of her plays during the Gail Louw Season at the Playground Theatre.
Do you think Cyril Mann now has his rightful place in art history?
Piano Nobile Gallery has helped me look after the Cyril Mann estate for over thirty years. It is true that my husband is now widely recognised as an important figurative painter.
His works are in important public and private collections worldwide, including the British Museum Department of Prints and Drawings, the Guildhall Museum & Art Gallery, the William Morris Museum and the National Portrait Gallery.
I asked Piano Nobile Gallery to run a coinciding exhibition of Cyril’s self portraits during the play of the Girl in the Green Jumper at the Playground Theatre, as I wanted people to have the opportunity to see his works ‘first hand’, giving them an ‘immersive experience’ and getting to know him and his art before seeing the play.
Piano Nobile Gallery: Exhibition of Self-Portraits by Cyril Mann.
Piano Nobile and the Playground Theatre are only two miles apart. Transport for guests to/from the gallery and the theatre will be available on both the Preview and Press night.
Cyril was convinced that he was born either 50 years too late or too early.
Had he been born fifty years earlier, he would have been a contemporary of Vincent van Gogh, who was his hero, equally ignored during his lifetime.
In six years’ time, it will be fifty years since Cyril died. Will he by then have his rightful place in art history?
I hope many more people will appreciate him as an artist and admire his integrity and originality. If they do, I can look back on my life as one well spent.
However, there is far too much hype in the art world. I want no part of that and will make no further claims.
What input did you have in the stage version of The Girl in the Green Jumper?
A lot of input, especially in asking Gail to adapt some words – and lot of expletives – which he would have used.
I think we agree that it was a joy to work on this together, as it is with everyone else at the Playground: Christian Holder, our immensely talented director, Peter Tate and Naomi Sorkin, and now the beautiful, intelligent and talented actress playing ‘Renske, Natalie Ava Nasr.
I also realised that I had to let Gail write the play and stress certain aspects about our life I had preferred to keep to myself. After all, people are coming to see a play, they’re not coming to see a book!
It is not my job to censor Gail, who is a tremendously talented playwright. I’m deeply honoured that she agreed to write it and take this opportunity to thank her, also for her instinctive understanding of Cyril’s art.
What is the major point of this new play?
It is the truth! It is authentic… It resonates with artists throughout the world .I was surprised by the reaction from readers to my book The Girl in the Green Jumper.
Two women are flying over from Pennsylvania to see the play and meet me. The preview on March 13 was sold out in days.
There is a ‘buzz’ at the Playground Theatre!
Everyone is giving it their best shot…. And I’m grateful for the best team ever, the playwright, the actors, the director and yes, the Intimacy Director!
It’s going to be a visual feast and a ‘peaen to Cyril’. I couldn’t be happier.