BWW Interviews: Susie McKenna On Her New Stage Adaptation of THE SILVER SWORD

Ahead of the world stage premiere of one of the best children's books of all time according to The Times, The Silver Sword (based on the novel by Iain Serraillier), BWW:UK talks to Susie McKenna, Adapter and Director of this new stage show.

What enticed you to adapt this much-loved children's novel for the stage?

I read The Silver Sword when I was a child a couple of times, I think it was probably read to me first of all and then I read it again to myself when I was 11. I fell in love with it instantly, mostly because it had a monkey in it and I was obsessed with monkeys from a young age! I think it was also the fact that it was a) a wonderful story and b) one that gave me a sense of the wider world around me. It gave me a view of the outside world and of children elsewhere in the world which, up until then, I didn't really have.

What is it about the story then lends itself to a musical rather than a straight drama?

Steve Edis (Musical Director) and I had to make sure that we had very good reason to make the show 'musical'. Whilst the show is a musical adaptation, it's more a piece of music theatre rather than a 'musical' in itself. A lot of the songs come in when people are telling some kind of story, whether that's Ruth telling her sister the story of the Mountain or a soldier writing a letter or someone reporting something and that lent itself to various musical numbers. People take stories with them in order to keep hold of a sense of their own identity. When people are displaced or forced to flee their homes, people's verbal stories are crucial to their shared sense of history, their sense of safety and their identity. Certainly, Iain Serraillier uses the motif of storytelling as a way of his characters escaping their surroundings and the chaos they are living through and that seemed a very good hook for us to be able to incorporate specific musical numbers. The other side of the music was quite Brechtian I suppose in that much of the music makes comment on the action of a scene rather than existing as part of a scene itself - you don't have singing Nazis for example. The play uses the framework of a group of storytellers telling a story with all of the resources that they have to hand which include musical instruments as well as various pieces of junk and props scattered about the stage.

And of course, we wanted to incorporate the Polish tradition into the play as much as possible. Whilst the novel was written by an English author, it is - by all accounts - a Polish story. It's the story of Polish children who are estranged from their parents by the Nazis and so, our focus was the idea of Polish, Eastern European folk music. But then, of course, the children travel across Europe and meet various characters along the way which include a British Officer (who we wanted to have a sort of Noel Coward-esque feel), they meet a group of Russians, they meet other refugees from various different nations and they meet an American so the musical score soaks up all of these different influences thrown together through war.

Musical Director Steven Edis and yourself have worked together on musical projects for the last seventeen years now. How does your professional relationship work?

Steve and I have a shorthand, I suppose. We work a lot together on our own prior to rehearsal and that's really where the big work comes between us in a sense that, we're very fortunate that we live around the corner from one another. In fact, when we first started working together, we also lived round the corner from one another then but in Hackney.

We work in each other's houses quite a lot. In the rehearsal room, we tend to crossover a lot. We work together on incidental music and the feel and flow of the production - we've always worked in that way and it's always worked for us as a partnership. The same applies to the script. In general, I'm responsible for scripting and Steve for the music but the two are intrinsically linked - particularly in the case of this piece where so much of the story is told through music. I tend to give Steve a rough set of (usually pretty awful lyrics) and a steer on where I want the songs emotionally and he then makes them into the stunning music and lyrics that he writes.

Using actor/musicians, surely this brings a whole new dynamic to the book?

I'm in awe of an actor-musician cast. It's the first time I've done a professional actor-musician show as a director rather than an actor and I'm always astounded by just how much they have to take on in the standard rehearsal period of only three weeks. They have to be on top of the music as well as the choreography and script, working to a really tight set of timings. Wherever you turn in the rehearsal room for The Silver Sword, there's an actor-musician practising somewhere, they are extremely conscientious in trying to get on top of the material.

There's also the added element of puppetry in this case. We had a wonderful puppet master called Ronnie La Drew from Little Angel Theatre who came into rehearsals to lead some workshops on how to handle the puppets on stage. Again, the cast are terribly conscientious - they're always looking in the mirror, getting to grips with the personalities of the individual puppet characters and how they move. As a director, it's wonderful to watch.

What can audiences expect from your production of The Silver Sword?

I want audiences to come and enjoy The Silver Sword as a family or indeed for school children to come and see the piece with their friends and to talk about it with their own relatives afterwards. Definitely for me, Steve and I wrote the piece based on the idea that different generations could watch the show together as a real ripping yarn and a classic adventure story. It's a story with children at its heart, despite the fact that the only child actor we have in the show is Bronia. All the other members of the company are played by professional, adult actors. Because it's about a group of children, I hope children will identify with the piece and the characters presented to them. Most of all, I want them to be carried along by this wonderful story and, who knows, maybe watching the show will help open up conversations about the past and the present because of the subject matter. More than anything, I hope they have a really wonderful time and to follow us on this emotional journey and maybe to shed a few tears at the end....happy tears of course!

The Silver Sword will make its world stage premiere in B2 from Sat 26 Sept - Sat 3 Oct. For more information and to book your tickets, call the Belgrade Theatre Box Office on 024 7684 6715 or visit www.belgrade.co.uk where tickets are cheaper.