Tag Archives: a nice cup of tea

Community, Performance, Research, Writing

A Nice Cup of Tea – refreshed

Just a little mutual love and back scratch to artist “Darcy Isla” for her lovely feedback on her recent blog about a piece of work I made in 2008 … almost made me think of bringing it back to life.

A girl I met at university, while we were there, created this piece of theatre, centering around the making and drinking of tea in.Britain. It was fantastic. Themes I took from it were: therapy, catharsis, feminism, housewives, facade, honesty, comfort and vulnerability. It made me laugh, cry and ponder. All that from a little cup of tea. But the thing is, that little cup of tea (because she made one for each attendee, which was lots, and laid them all out on the ground) was made just how we wanted it, with such delicacy and careful detail that it became a fascinating and rewarding experience that each of us invested in. Aside from developing a probably lifelong envy for her creative genius, (Why couldn’t I have thought of that?) I took from it a newfound interest in tea – the drink, the social aspect, the history, the geography. I suppose, “How do you take it?” is only as open a question as tea drinking deserves.

You can read the full post and her blog here: http://darcyeleanorfox.wordpress.com/2012/10/10/how-do-you-take-it/

Performance, Research, Writing

A Nice Cup of Tea


Let Me Solve Your Problems,

Let Me Make You a Cup of Tea.

Tea the great soother. Tea the great problem solver.

A Nice Cup of Tea was written, devised and performed in 2008.

Installation and performance
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In response to needing to make it better, without really knowing what is wrong the smiling host will make tea and tell you lots of things you never knew before about tea, of course she’s really telling you lots of things about oppression and about wanting to break free… once she’s sorted all the mess out, all your mess out, that is.

“I’m quite sure India never asked to be colonised. In fact I’m sure she didn’t even realise it was happening until it was too late, bit by bit she made concession after concession until she had no strength left with which to fight back and then she became part of it, colluding with her oppressors until she was almost convinced that it was the best thing.
Then one day she realised that life couldn’t carry on this way, that her people couldn’t keep living under rule and that India wanted its self back.

And so it is that some things can make me really angry. IMG_0145Really really angry and maybe even really really upset. I don’t know for sure you see because the question how do I feel?  is more like How, do, I feel? Its a difficult one because I don’t really have time for emotions, no they get in the way you see I’m far too busy sorting everything else out and trying to make other people happy and well if I sat down and thought about it, about how I feel then I’m not sure when the feeling might ever stop.
IMG_0193But I am angry, I am so angry, so very angry that I’m afraid what might happen if I let it all out. And I’d like to throw something and break things and just exhaust myself with destruction but I wouldn’t gain anything, no in fact all I’d have to do is tidy it all back up again. I’d have to fix it all. And there’s so much mess and there’s only me who can sort it out. I have to clean up all this mess and once I’ve sorted out everyone else, once I’ve solved everyone else’s problems then maybe I’ll be okay. If I just make everything better, maybe then I’ll be better.” – performance text

A Nice Cup of Tea, Gemma Alldred, 2008