Adapted for the stage by Neil Duffield Music by John Foxx and Benge Directed by Juliet Forster THE AUTHOR THE STORY E. M. Forster was born in London on 1 January 1879. He First published in 1909, The Machine Stops is set in a post- studied Classics and History at King’s College, Cambridge, during apocalyptic world where humans live beneath the surface which time he began writing fiction and became a member of a of the earth. The short story explores the human need for discussion society known as the Apostles, many of whom went communication, connection and the obstacles that inhibit on to be part of the influential group of writers, intellectuals, it, namely technology. In this subterranean world, each and philosophers known as the Bloomsbury Group. person exists within their own individual cell and humanity is dependent on the Machine, a After university he travelled around Europe with technological provider of everybody’s his mother, which provided inspiration perceived needs. Travel is no longer necessary or desired for some of his novels, including A Room and all contact is made through Skype-like video calls. with a View (1908). He is best known This story, written over a century ago, is for his novels, including Howards End (1910) astoundingly poignant for us in 2016: it is a and A Passage to India (1924), but chilling prediction and exploration of he was also skilled essayist, literary our increasingly complex relationship critic, travel writer and short story with technology. It focuses on themes such as humankind’s writer. Much of his work dealt with the impact of class dependence on technology and the consequences of active difference and societal structures; through these themes he counter culture, as well as isolation, totalitarianism, the struggle was able to explore the need for humans to form meaningful for freedom and loss of identity. One of the protagonists, connections with each other and the barriers that prevent them Kuno, alone questions their now total dependency on technology from doing so. to live and communicate with each other, but in his struggle Forster self-identified as a humanist and was President of to break out can he reach the Earth’s surface before the the Cambridge Humanists from 1959 until his death, as well Machine stops? as being Vice-President of the Ethical Union in the 1950s. Forster wrote: “The humanist has four leading characteristics – curiosity, a free mind, belief in good taste, and belief in the human race.” Later, he was made a fellow at the University of Cambridge and in 1945 he moved to Cambridge permanently, Photo by Ben Pugh living there until his death in 1970. INTERVIEW WITH THE DIRECTOR, JULIET FORSTER INTERVIEW WITH THE DESIGNER, RHYS JARMAN Why did you want to direct this piece? everybody lives under the earth’s surface, but at the same time How did you become a designer? out what they’re inspired by, and finding visual languages for we visit other locations: we go up in an airship at one point, and those things to represent on stage. It’s really a way of creating I first read the story in 1998 and it immediately captured my I always liked doing art in school. I did a foundation in art at another we go to a room on the other side of the world. So I our own world – that’s been one of the biggest challenges of it. imagination. At the time lots of people were talking about the and design which I loved, and I still didn’t know what I Creating the language in which to tell this piece takes quite a millennium bug: there was an anxiety that once we reached think being able to make all that workable is a big challenge. wanted to do. I liked doing everything – drawing, sculpting, long time. And so you try things and they fail, and you try other 2000 all the machines would reset, nothing would work What new insights do you think this stage taking photographs, everything – so theatre seemed like this things and those things sometimes fail but then some things will anymore, there would be a huge apocalypse and everything adaptation offers? opportunity to use all of those different practices in one kind of be successful – it’s those successful things that you take further, would go horribly wrong. As we’ve developed into the future that I think because we’re developing a physical manifestation of discipline, really. So I think that’s why I do it: because it gives and eventually you start piecing this puzzle together. I think it we have now, we’ve become so much more reliant on technology me this platform to create stuff, where you can use a whole the Machine that is played by humans, you get a much clearer will probably still change as well, but for the most part I think – it’s in everyone’s homes, and there’s a sense that we’re range of skills, and you can be pretty wild with what you create, sense of how much of our natural self as humans has been we’ve landed on a world for our show. both connected to and isolated from each other through the compressed into the walls of this machine, into the workings and stuff that you really would have the chance to I think if you were increasing use of technology. And that means the story becomes Were there any particular aspects to this story just a fun artist. the mechanisms that actually separate us from each other. And that inspired you? more and more interesting. I think you’ll identify quite strongly with the character of Kuno, How did you come up with the design for The From the first time I read it I thought it was really interesting. How did you start the process of putting this short the one who tries to break out of it all. Machine Stops? story on stage? When I look at my portfolio from the last eight years, I see that In directing a piece like this, what type of Designing for theatres can be a lengthy process – especially a lot of my work is quite conceptual – it’s quite weird, it’s not I decided to work with the playwright Neil Duffield, who I’ve approach do you take in rehearsals? with a play like this, because it’s set in a fictionalised place, so necessarily that clear, it’s quite ambiguous stuff! I do a lot of worked with a lot before – I knew that he’d come up with an you don’t really have the anchor of being able to look up on the work with physical theatre that’s becoming dance, so there are interesting approach and respect Forster’s voice. The form of Because it’s such a physical piece, a lot of it has been working internet the place it’s set to see exactly how it looks. This process a lot of worlds that are created and suggested but they’re not the piece was something we jointly found. Although there are on movement. It’s easy to become a bit stereotypical with is much more about taking elements of the piece and finding necessarily prescribed as you would in a normal play. only really two characters in the story – Vashti and her son mechanical movements, but what I’m interested in drawing on is Kuno – the character and dominance of the Machine means that the movement language of insects and the idea of being under it’s something that needs to be given its own manifestation on the earth, and using that language to inform how the actors stage. It was a process of working out how we would put all of behave and how they move. I like actors to be playful, to try that together and make it work in the right form. things on-stage and to explore how we make that world happen. And what do you think the biggest challenge of So there’s been a lot of experimenting, building, and getting our the play is? heads right into that world. For the humans in the piece, we’re Probably trying to create such an enormously different world. We asking: what’s it like if you’re that isolated – if you’re on your have to completely transport our audience to this world, where own all the time, what then does direct contact mean? Photo by Ben Pugh Caroline Gruber Trained at the Royal Central School of Speech And Drama. Vashti Theatre credits include: Abandonment (York Theatre Royal); Two Thousand Years (Royal National Theatre); Six Degrees of Separation (The Royal Exchange); Love Me Slender (New Vic Theatre); What Every Woman Knows (Watermill Theatre, Newbury); Nice Dorothy, The Return of the Prodigal, The Artifice, Penny for a Song, The Dutch Courtesan, His Majesty, Cat with Green Violin and Play With Repeats (Orange Tree CAST Theatre); The Corn Is Green (Greenwich Theatre); Steaming (Belgrade Theatre, Coventry); Milk and Honey (Manchester Library Theatre); The Clandestine Marriage (Compass and tour); and seasons at the Pitlochry Vashti Caroline Gruber Festival and Chester Gateway. Kuno Karl Queensborough Television credits include: Einstein and Eddington, My Dad’s the Prime Minister, Bottom, Rory Bremner (Who Machine / Attendant Maria Gray Else?), Stick With Me Kid, Harry Enfield’s Television Programme, TV Squash, The Bill, Grange Hill, Heil Honey I’m Home, Who Dares Wins, Minder, Sorrel and Son, The Upper Hand and Up Yer News. Machine / Passenger Gareth Aled Film credits include: Too Many Gods and Breakpoint.