Row on row, the poppies flow at the Tower of London The award-winning theatre designer Tom Piper who has brought the Tower poppy display to life reveals what its extraordinary climax will be on Armistice Day Manifest poppies bleed from a bastion window, they arc above its medieval causeway, and surge over the top of the walls – like infantrymen at the Somme – before saturating the Tower of London’s 11th-century moat in a wash of crimson. Small wonder then that the world has been captivated by the unveiling of this astonishing artwork – part installation, part living theatre – designed to commemorate the centenary of World War One. On her visit this week, the Duchess of Cambridge was visibly moved to tears. Remarkably, until the unveiling, no one had truly understood how ambitious, how emotive the project would be. One man had an inkling though: Olivier-Award-winning theatre designer Tom Piper, who brought to life ceramicist Paul Cummins’s concept of planting’’ the moat with 888,246 ceramic poppies (one for each British soldier lost during the 1914-18 war). Back in June, he wrote on his blog: This could end up being epic…’’ In his first interview, Piper, now associate designer with the Royal Shakespeare Company, admits that neither he, nor Cummins, nor Deborah Shaw, head of creative programming at Historic Royal Palaces, really grasped the magnitude of the event called “Blood Swept Lands And Seas Of Red” when they began planning the commemoration last year. It was named after a poem, written by a soldier who died in the trenches, and discovered by Cummins in a Chesterfield library. The sheer scale has turned out to be a good thing,” says Piper. “It’s taking so long to plant the poppies that it has become a living thing. People are coming to the Tower just to watch other people – all volunteers – plant poppies. It’s an on-going performance.’’ The poppies can be purchased (for delivery in January) – more than 200,000 have been sold – with funds going to six Service charities. All three protagonists were at the opening of the installation, standing with the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, and Prince Harry on top of the Tower, on Monday. They were really complimentary. And Wills told me he would liked to come back and plant some poppies himself incognito.’’ When Shaw decided to execute Cummins’s idea, 49-year-old Tom Piper was a clever choice to dramatise the installation. He developed an interest in theatre design at Cambridge with his friend, later an Oscar-winning director, Sam Mendes. Piper swapped from reading biology to History of Art, before taking an MA at the Slade in theatre design. He then worked with the legendary director Peter Brook on The Tempest at the Bouffes du Nord theatre in 1990: It was a golden ticket into theatre,’’ says Piper. Returning to the UK, he worked with Michael Boyd at the Tron Theatre in Glasgow, following him to the RSC in 2004, when Boyd was made artistic director. In 2012, Piper collaborated with the architect Alan Farlie to create the acclaimed “Shakespeare: Staging the World” exhibition at the British Museum. This was very different from designing a theatre set; Alan had the detailed knowledge of how an exhibition would work so together we created a narrative.’’ It was this blend of experience that attracted Deborah Shaw, he says: She needed someone who was used to big projects, had a theatrical eye, who could work with the project rather than running off with it, yet make it bigger.’’ She knew that Piper is used to working in Thrust theatre, where the audience sits on three sides around the actors and so imagery has to be three-dimensional and sculptural”. And also that he had a natural feel for the past: Piper’s work on The Histories – the staging of all Shakespeare’s history plays by the RSC between 2006-2008 – won him the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Costume Design. But he says that each of the trio brought ideas: Shaw came up with the ceremonial Last Post being played every night in a raised area where a roll of honour would be read out, directly under the Tower and in the midst of the flood of flowers. Every evening that solemnity contrasts with the hammering of poppies into the ground – we did consider having a continuous roll of honour read out – all 800,000–plus names, but this has worked out better: the public can suggest names of family members as well as plant a poppy.’’ Although each poppy-planting shift lasts four hours, many are volunteering to take part more than once – up to eight times. We’ve been touched by the way they have approached it, and some have written beautiful blogs about their experiences.’’ Piper is amazed by the response: The number of incredibly nice comments we’ve had has been so moving. Theatre is an elitist art form – it can be expensive or simply hard to get tickets for – but there’s something about the openness of this project; anybody can come and watch it or buy a poppy. It has real people power; the public has taken over the project more than we ever thought they would.’’ People have flown in from Hong Kong and New York to take part. Piper’s idea for the sweeping installations of poppies falling like tears from the stonework was partly inspired by a visit to Flanders last November to gather material for this project and for the forthcoming RSC production of The Christmas Truce, which will tell the story of the Warwickshire Regiment’s involvement in the festive English–German football matches of 1914. Seeing the major museums and visiting those military graveyards was moving in its own way, but I knew our installation had to be more dynamic.’’ At first, he had hoped to create a wonderful surprise. “In theatre, we are used to preparing for an opening night and having a big reveal, but it quickly became obvious that wouldn’t be possible. We couldn’t have hidden nearly a million ceramic poppies.’’ Instead, he decided to grow’’ it out of his three big installations: the Wave over the causeway which leads into the Tower, the Weeping Window and the surge of poppies into the dry moat. There is a special symbolism in the meeting of the flowers; during the war, this was where regiments met up before deployment, and it become the training ground for the first of what would become known as the Pals’ Battalions – groups of men united by home town or profession who signed up together to fight. We did explore having poppies inside the Tower itself but that proved too expensive; we couldn’t just spike them into the ground as the archaeology is too sensitive there. It’s been incredibly hands–on.I’ve spent a lot of time up a cherry picker, painting and wriggling poppies into place, as well as planting and embellishing the other structures.’’ The poppies – which come in three heights – have found a natural blend: It has a sort of organic quality; from a distance that gives it a slight shimmer. The taller ones even sway in the wind, and we see birds and some rather confused bees flying through it.’’ The poppies will gradually join up around the 16-acre moat in gently co-ordinated swathes. Only at the end – on Armistice Day on November 11 – will we fill in the edges of the moat, and make a neat finish.’’ At this point, the installation’s coup de theatre will be revealed: from above, the ancient White Tower, built by William the Conqueror, will be encircled by a sea of crimson red, its round black roof marking the heart of the world’s most dramatic poppy. To plant or buy a poppy or to dedicate a poppy to a fallen serviceman from the Great War: poppies.hrp.org.uk The Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red By Anon – Unknown Soldier The blood swept lands and seas of red, Where angels dare to tread. As I put my hand to reach, As God cried a tear of pain as the angels fell, Again and again. As the tears of mine fell to the ground, To sleep with the flowers of red, As any be dead. My children see and work through fields of my Own with corn and wheat, Blessed by love so far from pain of my resting Fields so far from my love. It be time to put my hand up and end this pain Of living hell, to see the people around me Fall someone angel as the mist falls around, And the rain so thick with black thunder I hear Over the clouds, to sleep forever and kiss The flower of my people gone before time To sleep and cry no more. I put my hand up and see the land of red, This is my time to go over, I may not come back So sleep, kiss the boys for me. Source: telegraph.co.uk
Posted on: Mon, 01 Sep 2014 07:00:01 +0000
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