Photo: Turning Tide Theatre & Plumb Theatre
Geoff Clendon is a drama teacher who'd been entranced with Samuel Taylor Coleridge since he was a teenager. Darren Breeze was playing violin in a school production Clendon was running.
Clendon wanted to perform Coleridge's "Rime of the Ancient Mariner", Breeze wanted to raise funds for overseas study.
Thus an epic plan was born.
Royal Albatross in flight. Better in the sky than around your neck. Photo:
Clendon would recite the entire poem (which takes over half an hour) while Breeze provided the musical commentary on violin.
You probably know the story, even if you don't know the 19th-century masterpiece: a sailor on a voyage to a great southern land, shoots and kills an albatross. Then things really turn pear-shaped.
Speaking to RNZ Concert host Bryan Crump, Clendon says he was inspired not just by Coleridge's words, but also the illustrations found in an 1875 edition of the poem created by the French artist and engraver, Gustave Doré. A copy resides in the rare books room of the Auckland City Library.
Engraving by Gustave Doré, from his series of illustrations for The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Coleridge Taylor Photo: Public Domain / Gustave Doré
The production is on over a five-day season during the first week of April, in Auckland's Pitt Street Theatre.
While Clendon recites it, Breeze will respond, sometimes improvising, sometimes conjuring up pieces from the violin repertoire from memory (not something every classical musician can do).
And before Clendon utters a word, Breeze will set the scene with J S Bach's mighty "Chaconne in D Minor".
"It really fits in with the mood of this [poem]," says Breeze. "The tragedy, the struggle, but there is also brightness to it all."
You'll hear snippets of other works throughout the performance: a bit of Saint-Saëns' "Danse Macabre" and part of "The Red Violin Caprices" by John Corigliano.
Crump wants to know what part of the poem Corigliano's music represents. His guests fall silent, so Crump plays it to jog their memory.
Which moves Clendon to speak these words;
"I looked upon the rotting sea,
And drew my eyes away;
I looked upon the rotting deck
And there the dead men lay.
I looked to heaven, and tried to pray;
But or ever a prayer had gusht,
A wicked whisper came, and made
My heart as dry as dust.
I closed my lids, and kept them close,
And the balls like pulses beat;
For the sky and the sea, and the sea and the sky
Lay dead like a load on my weary eye,
And the dead were at my feet."
Engraving by Gustave Doré, from his series of illustrations for The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Coleridge Taylor Photo: Public Domain / Gustave Doré
Is it a coincidence, Crump wonders, noting that the show is on just after Easter, that the sight of an albatross soaring overhead looks a little like a cross? Does the narrator in Coleridge's poem shoot the sacred bird like we humans killed Jesus?
"Oh absolutely," replies Clendon. "It's very religious, and he talks about a lot, of humanity having kindness towards creatures great and small, and it is symbolic of that."
Geoff Clendon: always was a bit of a sea dog. Photo: supplied
And then he quotes another great line from the poem: "instead of the cross, the albatross, about my neck was hung".
As for Breeze, and the fundraising aspect of the gig, he's not sure where he will study yet - apart from that it will be overseas.
"I've got many options available and I'm currently auditioning a schools in Hanover in Germany, and also in Australia."
We recommend you get down to the Pitt Street Theatre next month to hear Clendon and Breeze perform before the latter takes flight.
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
Wed 3 Apr 2024 - Sun 7 Apr 2024
Pitt Street Theatre
Auckland
