Seals and Humans - What Does It All Mean?

Rehearsal shot: Mary and Gen reminisce about their past life in the ocean

Although The Selkie Wife may appear to be about a fantasy world in which people can transform themselves into seals at will, there is an underlying, all too real, message for us non-Selkie humans.

The women in Kelley Jo Burke's play have become Selkies as a result of being saved at the point of death from abusive relationships. In recognition of this theme, we are dedicating the back page of our programme to the Island Women's Refuge who do essential and amazing work to support women who have suffered domestic abuse.

After being in a controlling environment, our Selkies understandably relish and treasure the freedom, power and independence they acquire: the ocean is a world of endless possibilities, theirs to explore.

This is why Gen cannot understand why Mary has chosen to forsake all that to spend twenty years on land with her husband and daughter: how could a dreary life in a small town compare with the power to 'call up the maelstrom, just for the ride'?

It is young Dylan who starts to grasp the alternative: the metaphor of the walkers, a couple who stroll along the cliff edge, both subconsciously protecting the other from possible danger, gives him an insight into a relationship in which each partner cares more for the other than for themselves; where they live a life of mutual support and love. 

The dichotomy Burke presents us with is that in order to achieve this deep, lovingly committed relationship, one has to sacrifice some of one's own power and make oneself vulnerable to the other person. And this is a threatening prospect for those who have been hurt in previous relationships.

By distancing us from the horrifying suffering women can endure by use of mythology, The Selkie Wife manages to convey the depth of its message while remaining positive, mesmerising, funny and uplifting.

The Selkie Wife is playing at The Apollo Theatre on 21, 22, and 25-29 October - tickets from the Box Office (open 11am - 2pm daily) at the theatre in Pyle Street, Newport, by phoning the Box Office on.    Or via our website 

The Selkie of Sule Skerry

The Selkie male is traditionally irresistible to the human woman.

At the start of The Selkie Wife, audiences will be treated to a beautiful rendition of a haunting traditional Orkney song, The Selkie of Sule Skerry, sung to the accompaniment of acoustic guitar. Music from this song also recurs providing atmospheric underpinning for key moments in the play.

This is, as far as we can remember, the first time a dramatic piece at The Apollo has included live music performances, and that along with being the UK Premiere makes The Selkie Wife a very special Apollo production.

The song follows the more common Selkie theme of a Selkie man seducing a human woman: she laments that she does not know where her child's father is, and he appears to tell her that he is only a man on land, but is a seal in water. He takes his son to the child's destiny, since children of Selkies can themselves also take the form of seals and swim away.

The song was collected in print only in the nineteenth century, when it was listed as Child Ballad No 113; there are many different versions of the song and it has been recorded by artists as varied as Joan Baez, Steeleye Span and the Breton singer Cecile Corbel.

But we love our version: you can hear an extract sung and played live on The Chris Sullivan Programme on Vectis Radio at 2pm on Tuesday 18 October, which will whet your appetite for the whole thing at our shows on October 21st, 22nd and 25th -29th.

To listen to the radio broadcast go to: Vectis Radio Listen Live

To book tickets for The Selkie Wife go to: Apollo Theatre - The Selkie Wife

Selkies and Humans

Selkie by Caroline Emerick 2013

Despite its ‘otherworldly’ subject matter, ‘The Selkie Wife’ deals with all too human dilemmas.

An amusing subplot shows the effect a handsome young man, particularly one whose knowledge of social morality is loose, has on an impressionable teenage girl; fathers of young girls will fully sympathise with Cal as he tries vainly to protect his daughter’s honour and her ‘peanut butter virginity’.

A more serious central image is that of ‘the walkers’: couples who unconsciously give mutual physical protection as they walk along the cliff edge, because, as Mary explains to Dylan, if something bad should happen, each wants to look after the other: ‘they’d rather be dead than the one left behind’.

This idea of loving someone else more than oneself is contrasted with the Selkie life of individual freedom: attractive to anyone who has been abused and denied freedom, as the women in the play have: the fear of making oneself vulnerable to more hurt by falling in love again is implicit in the character of Gen, who struggles to understand why Mary has made a life on land with Cal.

Striking, funny, heart-rending and beautifully written, ‘The Selkie Wife’ also gives the audience much to ponder.

So what is a Selkie?

Selkie is the dialect word for seal in the Orkney Islands, where the Selkie Folk are still a local  myth. Indeed, the song which haunts our upcoming production of ‘The Selkie Wife’ at The Apollo is itself from the Orkneys – more about that in another blog.

The basic folklore, of Celtic origin, and possibly connected to the Scandinavian myth of the Finfolk, is of creatures able to shift their form from seals into humans and back again, through the casting off and putting on of their seal skin. In some variations they can only transform at certain times, and many tales have humans concealing their mates’ seal skins to hold them to their human form.

There are many tales of Selkies, most suggesting that in human form, these creatures are alluring and mesmerising: they can mate with humans and their children can themselves become selkies. Tales abound of Selkies finding their skins after years on land and deserting their human partners, often taking their children with them.

Selkies are variously believed to be a water-borne form of fairyfolk;  humans who for some misdemeanour were condemned to spend their life as seals, and souls of humans who had drowned. Kelley Jo Burke has taken a variation of the last explanation as a basis for her beautiful and thought-provoking play.

‘The Selkie Wife’ will be staged at The Apollo Theatre on 21^st, 22^nd and 25^th-29^th October at 7.30pm.

For tickets and further information please visit: http://www.apollo-theatre.org.uk/the-selkie-wife/

Our director introduces.....The Selkie Wife.

The next production at the Apollo Theatre will be ‘The Selkie Wife’, a play by Canadian author Kelley Jo Burke.  Her work is well known in her home country but the Apollo is proud and delighted to announce that this will be the UK premiere of this particular play.

The director is Ginnie Orrey.  More usually seen on the Apollo stage, Ginnie has chosen to direct this complex and beautifully written play after seeing it in a tiny theatre on the Canadian prairies and subsequently meeting the author, who is ‘absolutely thrilled’ that her play will be travelling to the Isle of Wight.  She found her inspiration in the Celtic myth of ‘selkies’ – seals who shed their sealskins to come on to dry land, find a mate and have children and then return to the sea.  Kelley Jo has turned the myth on its head by focusing on a selkie who chooses to keep her human form and stay on land with her husband and family, and the difficult decisions she has to make when another selkie comes to take her back to the water.

The cast includes Apollo stalwarts Ian Moth and Sue Edwards, alongside relative newcomers Esther Poucher and Maureen Sullivan, and introduces Josh Pointing, from the Isle of Wight Shakespeare Company. 

‘The Selkie Wife’ opens on 21 October and runs to 29 October.

Habeas Corpus: The History

You may have seen the title of the latest Apollo Players’ show and wondered, ‘What does it mean?’

Habeas Corpus is a Latin phrase which literally means: ‘You may have the body’.

It is normally a legal term, going back to the Habeas Corpus Act of 1679 which itself only made legal what was already a known procedure by which the length of time the police or courts could hold a prisoner without trial may be challenged.

The writ of Habeas Corpus, on which the act was based, goes back to at least the 12^th century and was guaranteed in the Magna Carta of 1215, famously signed by King John at Runnymede.

So that’s your history lesson for the day.

But....

Typically, Alan Bennett has taken a formal Latin legal phrase and bent it to his will, for in the play, the message ‘You may have the body’ refers not to anyone being imprisoned against their will, nor any crime being committed, but to the various characters’ plotting to ‘have the body’ of their choice – in a very different context!

Our hilarious, entertaining production is about as far away as it is possible to get from a stuffy courtroom drama – come along and see it at The Apollo Theatre from 2 September.

Tickets and further information available at: http://www.apollo-theatre.org.uk/habeas-corpus/

Habeas Corpus – the Apollo Players

The first show of our new 2016-2017 season is the hilarious ‘Habeas Corpus’ by Alan Bennett.

While still studying History at Oxford, Bennett started out writing and performing satirical sketches in ‘Beyond the Fringe’ with the likes of Peter Cook and Dudley Moore. He has said that at this time he thought he would end up as a vicar – for no better reason than he looked like one. Thankfully for British theatre, he quickly found his calling as a writer and performer, but he has always been happier, and some may say more successful, as the former.

Alan Bennett is now generally accepted as a ‘National Treasure’: perhaps his best known play currently is ‘The Lady in the Van’ which was made into a box office hit film starring Dame Maggie Smith, and was famously based on his real life experience of having a female tramp living in her van on his driveway. The Apollo Players, incidentally, staged ‘Lady in the Van’ in February 2014 with great success. He is also very well known for ‘The History Boys’, ‘the Madness of King George’ and a string of other plays, alongside his famous ‘Talking Heads’ series of monologues, and of course his laugh-out-loud autobiographical books.

Anyone who has seen any of Bennett’s work will know he has an original, satirical and always entertaining style: ‘Habeas Corpus’ is one of his early plays, dating from 1973, but it stands the test of time well, for its subject matter is ageless, and a good old-fashioned farce with mistaken identities, seaside postcard-style humour and exaggerated characters is always popular. It is a testament to the quality of the play that it has been regularly staged ever since it was written.

Following on from ‘Allo ‘Allo! which completely sold out every night of its run, this is likely to be another very popular show, so our advice is to book your seats early to avoid disappointment: tickets are now available online here: http://www.apollo-theatre.org.uk/habeas-corpus/