In 2000, a Russian submarine, the Kursk, suffered a huge explosion that ripped the bow apart and sent the vessel to the seabed. Inspired by this tragic event, Sound&Fury and award winning playwright, Bryony Lavery, explore the unique experience of the submariner deep below the Arctic seas, alone, contained, controlled and yet with Armageddon at their fingertips.
Subsumed in the submarine space, the audience are silent observers to the events as they unfold, complicit to the world of secrecy and codes, witnesses to the last minutes of the Kursk. Using a highly novel and engaging stage design that embraces both the epic and the personal, the audience are put at the heart of the submariners’ dramatic journeys, inviting us to share in their anguish, fears, hopes and predicaments.
With unique sound design that creates the sonic equivalent of a virtual submarine, Kursk is an authentic and emotionally rich voyage into the icy depths of the Barents Sea and the dark recesses of the imagination. At once a poetic trip through the hidden world of the submariner and an exploration of human survival that leaves the viewer both thrilled and haunted.
In April 2005 two of Sound&Fury’s creative directors Mark Espiner and Dan Jones won an innovative award from the Arvon foundation, and joined forces with award-winning writer Bryony Lavery. Using the creative point of departure of the story of the Kursk, the shared skills of theatrical storytelling, writing, performance, visual art and sound design coalesced to create a stunning performance piece where the audience are placed at the centre of the work and set design and the performance unfold around it. A new theatrical language was developed, where the writing was led by Bryony Lavery and the aesthetic was directed by Sound&Fury.
Sound&Fury conducted in-depth research for Kursk and worked closely with the Royal Navy and Ministry of Defence. They were security cleared to visit two nuclear hunter killer submarines in Plymouth. The Royal Navy were so impressed with their work that they awarded the company with honorary Dolphins, the decoration awarded to serving submariners.
Bryony Lavery on Kursk
“I’m always attracted to subject matter that scares me. I’m always attracted to investigate a world that is alien to me. I’m insatiably nosy. I’d like to become Omniscient. When Sound&Fury shared their Kursk submarine idea with me, on a Dark Room workshop in a remote house in Shropshire, I knew it had this brilliant tick list of Alien Things That Scare Me… Claustrophobic Space, Mighty Sea, Entirely Male World, Unquestioning Obedience, Nuclear Annihilation , Big Dangerous Machinery…How could you not want to write about that?
Sound&Fury are Research Uber-Lords. They set up The Best Field Trips. My visit to a nuclear submarine is one of the most interesting, strangest days of my life. Looking through a periscope. Standing inches away from a huge nuclear torpedo. Hearing this alien language…submariner protocol… Meeting these extraordinarily kind, generous men whose job is to point nuclear weapons at other kind generous men….How could all that not have a combustive reaction on my brain cells?
Watching the production is extraordinary for me…It’s seeing the sound and sight of our submarine and its crew doing its silent running through the audience mind…It’s like the whole theatre leaves land and goes underwater for one hour fifteen minutes.”
Classification
Recommended for ages 14+
Seating
KURSK is a promenade production – no conventional seating provided.
Running time
90 mins (no interval)
…the most brilliantly immersive piece of theatre I’ve seen all year…
An unforgettable homage to the men of the Kursk, and all their kind – The Telegraph
