Cherry Blossom - Traverse Theatre / Teatr Polski - set and video design by 59

ABOUT THIS PROJECT

Mark Grimmer and Leo Warner have designed the video for this co-production between the Traverse Theatre Edinburgh, and the Teatr Polski, Bydgoszcz. The show also marks Leo's set design debut.

After a short run in Edinburgh, the show will tour to Bydgoszcz and Warsaw.

Read an article in The Scotsman about the development of the project.

SELECTED REVIEWS

"The real star of the show is the set by Leo Warner and Mark Grimmer, the much-touted team behind the innovative multimedia company 59 Productions, and the youngest ever associates of London's National Theatre. It's a crazy-paving of white oblongs laid flat across the stage, on to which they project a tumbling collage of words, translations, scene-setting illustrations and video footage. Not only is it a technical wonder, but it also plays a fully integrated part in building the production's dizzy atmosphere of dislocation."

The Guardian ****

"The impeccable credentials add up to the rare experience of a genuinely bilingual play (about 40 per cent is in Polish with translations projected on to the floor and Polish translations of the English also projected). It is a handsome production too, with some fine acting."

The Times

"Performed on an apron stage with the audience on banked seating, translations and scenery are projected onto the floor., together with the indication of who each character is...A brilliant piece of work."

The Scotsman ****

"Dazzling and heartfelt."

The Herald

"Catherine Grosvenor’s Cherry Blossom is an impassioned attempt to represent the experience of Poles migrating to the West, while Lorne Campbell’s direction ensures that the play – performed in English and Polish – is understandable to speakers of both languages. But it’s Leo Warner and Mark Grimmer (of Black Watch and Dorian Gray) upon whose highly technological, Cluedo board-like set the audience ultimately depend to guide them through the intertwining stories...an exciting example of cross-border artistic collaboration."

The List

"Cherry Blossom - co-produced with the Teatr Polski of Bydgoszcz, Poland - is a landmark theatre event in Scotland...bursting with energy and with unanswered questions, both about its form and its content....Cherry Blossom, which travels to Poland after its Edinburgh run, is a show to remember for its serious and passionate attempt at fully inhabiting the 21st-century world in which we live; and it boasts four superb performances, humane, committed, clever and strong."

Joyce McMillan

"A hugely dense piece of theatre which often deliberately obfuscates the events on stage. Yet, by doing so, it succeeds in providing an enlightening take on how it is to be in a foreign land."

The Stage