We chat with director David Green and actor Joana Fresca to find out more about The Distance, coming to Camden Fringe.
“Xlthlx is a biology student, working day and night on her thesis while trying to survive life in the big city, until one morning she receives a foreboding letter begging her to return to her little home town by the sea.”
Where: Rosemary Branch Theatre
When: 29-31 Jul
What are you looking forward to the most at Camden Fringe?
JF: A friendly crowd that is open to all the gems the Camden Fringe
hosts and looking forward to seeing them as well.
There are so many great
shows at Camden Fringe like Soft Boi by the wonderful Liv Hogan who is
also in The Distance. Also looking forward to seeing Second Hand
Problems and Moths, Mothers & Dead People.
DG: Honestly, I’m just going to take a punt on some shows last minute.
That’s what I love about Fringe is that you can just take a chance on
something that turns out to be brilliant.
Tell me about The Distance. It’s a family show, described as “a
fantastical show with song, physical theatre, and clowning … about the power of companionship and remembering who you are in a chaotic, noisy and fragmented world’?
JF: This has actually evolved a bit since this blurb was written, the
student has now graduated. It still is a show for all (12yo and above)! But there is some discussion of murder…
DG: The original idea for the show was to make a straightforward
adaptation of an Italo Calvino short story, which is about a love triangle between the crew of a boat that go out to sea once a month to climb up to the moon and harvest moon milk.
Over time the concept has evolved and now the story is set many years later and takes a peripheral character from the original story and throws her into an entirely new scenario.
It’s now completely different from the story which it takes influence from. I think it’s a show about friendship, but other people might see it differently.
It’s definitely fantastical because it has mystical paella, and there’s lots of fantastical stuff about the moon.
This is Mollusc Theatre’s first show. How did it all start? What’s
your background?
JF: We all met at the Directors Playground a great (affordable and
friendly) place for directors to bring their ideas and for actors to come along and play.
We were all put together, and so began the Mollusc Theatre! We all really enjoyed working together, and David invited us to take the little idea from that space to Camden Fringe.
DG: The Director’s Playground kickstarted this whole project. I had been playing around with ideas for this show with friends in Norwich a couple of years before but then I moved back to London which put an end to that.
Director’s Playground was a brilliant place to develop the show with a group of people who all want to be making work and getting on stage.
We discussed the idea of taking the show further there, and everyone was very keen – fast forward a few months and lo and behold it’s happening!
You are playing your show at Rosemary Branch Theatre. Has that been a good place for the development of The Distance?
JF: The development of the show has been done outside of the Rosemary
Branch but we are very much looking forward to performing it there. It’s the perfect space to debut our little joy of a show.
DG: I did a show at Camden Fringe a couple of years ago and found that
then, as now, the venues are really open to all different ideas for shows and make life really easy for incoming performers.
As Joana said, we have been making this show outside of the Rosemary Branch, but they’ve been very approachable and welcoming in inviting us to use their theatre.
What’s next after Camden?
JF: We might have to ask the mystic in our group to do a paella reading
for that one.
DG: If the paella reading says writing songs for a new show I’ll be happy.