SUBLIMITY features David Bridel in the role of tormented English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, focusing, in particular, on that fateful evening in 1797 when he composed his famous pre-romantic masterpiece, Kubla Khan. Exploring the tragicomic character of Coleridge - part tender fool, part opium addict - SUBLIMITY uses many of the poet's own words to explore the nature of creativity and inspiration.
It is generally agreed that the Romantic era in English literature began with the poems of the dynamic literary duo Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth. Coleridge’s classic poem Kubla Khan (A Vision in a Dream), composed under the influence of opium and famously interrupted by a visit from a mysterious “man from Porlock”, remains an enduring masterpiece of the age.
From Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Preface to his poem Kubla Khan: “On awakening he appeared to himself to have a distinct recollection of the whole, and taking his pen, ink, and paper, instantly and eagerly wrote down the lines that are here preserved. At this moment he was unfortunately called out by a person from Porlock, and detained by him above an hour, and on his return to his room, found, to his no small surprise and mortification, that though he still retained some vague and dim recollection of the general purport of the vision, yet, with the exception of some eight or ten scattered lines and images, all the rest had passed away like the images on the surface of a stream into which a stone has been cast...”
Sublimity Dates, Cast & Crew:
August 2012 @ Stanislavsky Institute in Sao Paulo, Brazil
May 2012 @ Lyric Hyperion Theatre & Cafe
Sublimity - by David Bridel
Directed by Jeremy Aluma and David Bridel
Produced by Four Clowns and The Clown School
starring David Bridel as Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Assistant Director & Stage Manager - Mike Fun
Set & Projection Designer - Nick Santiago
Costume Designer - Christina Wright
Wig by - Jim Tanner
Lighting Designer - Sarah Steinman
Graphic Designer - Kiff Scholl
Time - 1797
Location - Ash Farm, near Porlock, England