Listed as: Actor/Performer, Director, Writing
Alison Farina is a playwright, actor and director based in Bath, Somerset.
Her theatre company, Butterfly Psyche focuses on new writing with an emphasis on the strength of ‘story’ and ‘truth’ in theatre.
As a writer, her work is heavily influenced by myth, folklore and the stories she picks up along the way. Her previous works include Seven Tears by Moonlight (2006), Of Dark and Bright (2008), Paradise Left (2009) and The Persistence of Memory (2010).
Her most recent project was the production and direction of Water's Not So Thick, by Gill Kirk at the Rondo Theatre in Bath.
The Persistence of Memory deals with the idea of memory through the exploration of a father-daughter relationship (‘Dante’ and ‘Iphee’) as the father’s memory and personality prematurely fade.
The slant to this piece is the additional character of ‘Mneme’, the Muse of Memory, who is caught between her inescapable duty to take ‘Dante’ away, and her compassion for those she has to leave behind.
‘Water’s Not So Thick’, like life, is a dark comedy. And, like life, sometimes we find more ‘dark’ than ‘comedy’.
The Kilpatrick family is preparing for Rupert’s wedding to his fiancée Rebecca.
As the drama unfolds, we watch the cracks in the Kilpatrick veneer turn to massive fissures. Will Rupert and Rebecca make it, or will the skeletons in the well-appointed pantry ruin everything?
Seven Tears by Moonlight tells the story of a fisherman and his family and how family secrets can both forge and tear apart relationships.
In 1441, Eleanore Cobham, wife of Humphrey of Lancaster, Duke of Gloucester was notoriously convicted and imprisoned for treasonable necromancy and was made famous in Shakespeare’s Henry VI Part II.
Due to her noble status, Eleanore escaped the death penalty, but was banished to a life of imprisonment on the bleak and remote Isle of Man instead. She was declared divorced from Humphrey with existence erased from her family and from history.
It is here, on the Isle of Man in the remote Peel castle that our tale begins.
Best-selling British, medieval-biographer Alison Wier says of Alison’s Of Dark and Bright,
`This play brings to life the desperate situation of Eleanor Cobham as never before. Thanks to Alison Farina`s powerful portrayal, I was living it.’
Adam and Eve were the first man and woman created by God. Or were they...?
Enter Lilith, the not-so-well known First Lady of Eden.. Paradise Left is an alternative to Genesis as we know it, with bawdy innuendo, a healthy sprinkle of angels & demons, and office politics. Oh, and a guest appearance by Lucifer.
In August, 2010 I set up Butterfly Psyche Theatre.
My vision was to have a company dedicated to the support and production of new writing for the theatre, focussing on great stories, however they are approached.
Story, whether real or imaginary, spoken or written, viewed or read, is passed on from friend to friend, family to family, and generation to generation.
Theatre is the perfect medium to explore and present Story, so for Butterfly Psyche Theatre, theatre is Story with ‘soul’.