THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT
Filmed over one evening and in one take, this is a uniquely intimate performance about the grief of unexpectedly losing a child. It invites you to watch one broken couple explode from their home. And they couldn’t care less who's watching.
Co-commissioned by Fuel and The Place
Supported by The Albany, Camden People’s Theatre, Northern Stage and Wandsworth Council.
The project is funded by Arts Council England, Wellcome Trust and the Peggy Ramsay Foundation.
Co-created by Jen Malarkey & Lee MattinsonCo-commissioned by Fuel and The Place
Supported by The Albany, Camden People’s Theatre, Northern Stage and Wandsworth Council.
The project is funded by Arts Council England, Wellcome Trust and the Peggy Ramsay Foundation.
Associate Director, Temitope Ajose-Cutting
Performers, Carl Harrison & Janet Etuk
Film by Hugo Glendinning
Second Camera, Tilly Shiner
Sound, Gus Collins for House of Noise
Producer, Fuel
"It’s ridiculous, absurd, infuriating and, at points, very, very sad. Which makes it an almost perfect portrayal of an attempt to navigate loss in the aftermath of an utterly unfathomable event. A jumbled-up clown dance through a blank space: that’s grief all right."︎︎︎︎ The Stage
Lockdown Hit: Show of 2020
Encounter’s hypnotic dance on grief was reinterpreted for digital using one long take. It captured the feeling of staring out of your window in lockdown into snippets of stranger’s lives. Director Jen Malarkey did not simply rework the show for digital – she made the medium integral to it.
Francesca Peschier
It is an agony to watch, and I mean that as the biggest compliment.
Lyn Gardner, Stage Door
The outdoor nature-concrete setting undeniably provides a sense of journey that a theatre space couldn’t. As the end of the day cocoons around Karen and Keith, people walk home, avoiding the invisible boundaries of grass and pavement under a darkening purple sky. Front doors open and close. The cameras keep the space open and our relationship with the couple ever evolving, even though by the end we know nothing much about them except the aching hole they share. Replaying the experience in my mind the space is imbued with meaning. Next to the tree. In the bush. In between the flats on the paving stones where they dance and talk about prawns and Asda. Place is a poignant trigger for memory. Naomi Obeng, Exeunt Magazine JEN MALARKEY
Jen Malarkey is a rare artist; She works cross artform – she’s interested in movement led work that has text and spoken language at the heart of the storytelling. The two forms (physical and spoken) have equity in her work and align to create an often explosive practice.
Louise Blackwell
Independant Producer and Co-founder of Fuel.
Jen’s work really interests us. She combines text and movement with rare confidence, flair and skill. Her ideas are distinct and convincing. Christina Elliot
Senior Producer, The Place
I really enjoyed the complexity (Of I Heart Catherine Pistachio) - never quite finding my narrative feet or locating a physical style. This made it bizarre and rich.
Eddie Nixon
Artistic Director, The Place
It’s not often that one encounters* work in theatre and performance that feels utterly distinctive. When you do, it leaps out. I’d heard of Jen and her work before I met her and so first I’d looked at I Heart Catherine Pistachio online and it did that - it leapt out. A rare collision of dark absurd humour with a sharp and delicate kind of honesty. It didn’t look or sound like anything I was aware of being made in the UK. The choreography shifts between a consciously awkward mawkish physicality and a fluidity that has real beauty in it. It’s tender, clever, human and humane work.
As we all know, these are extremely difficult times to gather the resources and create the circumstances to make art, especially that which might take risks or challenge our preconceptions. Jen Malarkey is an artist whose distinctive practice and voice genuinely deserves support – she has openness and commitment to collaboration with truly diverse sets of people and a vividness and energy of expression that we could really do with right now. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend her for Arts Council support.
Richard Gregory
Artistic Director, Quarantine
I am writing in support of Encounter’s application. Fuel has had the privilege of working with Jen since January 2017. I am happy to speak both to her integrity as an artist, to her excellence as a choreographer and director and to her relevance for anyone looking to present authentic contemporary Britain to the world beyond.
Jen’s work manages to attract and hold both theatre and non-theatre audiences through its skillful and unique choice of form. The form explores and exposes how absurdity is often in close attendance to tragedy. It manages to deliver an often shocking quality of emotional punch whilst never abandoning an audience to just deal with the consequences alone. Movement responds to language and language to movement with an authenticity that can only stem from a successful and deep creative partnership where form matches content. Jen draws on this stable core of process for the courage and confidence to push into new territory. During the pandemic, Jen’s surety of voice allowed us to embrace quite radical shifts when work was threatened with cancellation: to embrace film and headphone audio and to find audiences in non-traditional environments. This is not just about reworking a show, but about revisiting the fundamentals of the contract with an audience.
There is a real respect for the audience evidenced by Jen’s ability to reach out personally to engage with a community: knock on doors, get to know people, run workshops, create with children, handle the fragile and the intimidating with equal dexterity.
Jen has a readiness to own all aspects of her practice. No detail is too trivial: she cares as much about how the work is sold and shared as how it is made. She exhibits a palpable moral core in how she conducts her processes and manages working relationships.
Finally, from a production perspective Jen’s is a sustainable and sparse aesthetic. Body and voice with the barest minimum of additional gubbins. Costume is a powerful tool for her and the principal visual asset.
I hope these comments are helpful in your deliberations.
Stuart Heyes
Associate Director, Fuel Theatre
Letters of Recomendation
