Cornwall is to get a second coastal theater as an open-air play staged in a former mine

A landscape-specific theater company has taken over a stretch of rugged Cornish coastline for its latest production. Wildworks Theater is working on its latest production, Stranger Beasts, which will be staged at the iconic Geevor Tin Mine site near Pendeen this autumn.

In the play, the heroine is Belerion, a girl born of a cosmic mother and an earth-born father, bound to change the destinies of the land and her people. Wildworks said Stranger Beasts is a love song to the earth and a wild cry to the sky, with its roots firmly planted in myths and fairy tales such as Cupid and Psyche – a classic 2nd century tale – and Beauty and the Beast.

Belerion grows up wild and motherless, and as she reaches adulthood, her ordeal deepens. She is forced into an unwanted femininity and exploited by those who should love her but wish to tame her.

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Her stormy rage at cruel fate brings a stranger ashore and together they travel through the Thin Place, the border between land and sea. A liminal space, neither here nor there, where the rules are suspended and Bel and the Stranger can find love and acceptance of their strangeness.

Artistic director Mydd Pharo, who conceived Stranger Beasts and co-wrote with Mercedes Kemp, said: “This promises to be one of our most ambitious productions yet, with the bold intention to embody Cornwall and its incredible landscape in human form. story in the most dramatic of places – among the spoils and ruins of a rugged tin landscape at the end of the earth with the wild Atlantic beyond.

“Stranger Beasts is a life story and a love story that explores the transformative nature of strangers. It reminds us that despite the surface wounds and scars we collect throughout our lives, sometimes all it takes is the power of a stranger to sustain a magic. mirror to reflect and remind us of what power lies beneath.”

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Writer Mercedes Kemp added: “Stranger Beasts will explore the spirit of place that inhabits the wild Tine Coast. The character of Belerion embodies a land scarred by mining, a devastated landscape. The arrival of a Stranger gives Belerion a chance to love again, to find the wildness and strength in her wounded body to face the storms to come.”

Wildworks said Stranger Beasts will be the dramatic culmination of a host of activities that have been running since late last year under the We are Shining banner – the biggest theater engagement program ever staged in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly. We are Shining is supported by investment from the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Good Growth programme, managed by Cornwall Council and funded by the UK Government’s Shared Prosperity Fund

Jack Roberts, Operations Manager at Geevor Tin Mine, said: “We are very excited to be working with Wildworks on this innovative project and to host Stranger Beasts at this iconic location, we are delighted that Wildworks recognizes the importance of our site and how intrinsic linked to Cornish identity.”

Stranger Beast will run from September 18 to October 6, 2024.