Shelf Life

Details

Joining forces with Volcano Theatre and Welsh National Opera, National Theatre Wales takes over the evocative domed reading room of Swansea's old library. Follow a choir of librarians through the abandoned book stacks on a journey to whisper about for a very long time. ‘The Old Library is a fantastic space. The reading room is so full of energy and ghosts of past library visitors. When you are walking along that fantastic walkway that runs right round the edge of the reading room, you can almost feel the quiet energy of people reading books and the librarians looking disapprovingly across the room at people making noises. It is all there. The symmetry of that beautiful round space is a focal point. For a show, it will focus that performance beautifully. Everybody will have a different journey through the piece. Going into the vaults underneath is just incredible. The idea of the installation and finding little private, personal moments and finding things in corners that may have a soundtrack will be a really exciting experience for an audience. Then stepping into the main library space and seeing what unfolds.' Rhian Hutchings, Director of WNO MAX

Creatives/Company

Company(s): National Theatre Wales, Volcano Theatre, Welsh National Opera
Director(s): Paul Davies, Catherine Bennett
Design: Paul Clay
Music: Peter Swaffer Reynolds