The amazing people at Arts Council England are once again supporting me to make a show. I am so grateful to this fantastic country for continuing to allow me to do what I love doing! I'm going to spend the next 5 weeks researching, writing, singing and cooking to put together an idea of what 'Cabbage' could be.
I've been a bit quiet lately as there has been lots going on with me personally ... in the past month I got married, moved house and I'm expecting a baby in 6 weeks time! So I have been busy busy! Which is hard to keep creative ideas afloat when life is demanding so much (and with tiny little feet dancing in your belly!) but oh how I would love to get this little show off the ground before I take maternity leave.
So what is 'Cabbage' you ask. Well, I chose it as a title because it is a lovely rounded word. Cabbage. It falls out of the mouth easily, layers of veined leaves, soft on the edges. And yes, cabbages are plain, unimaginative and slimy but they are also mystical, regal and sensual. They are teeming with associations to pregnancy (rapunzel, cabbage leaves for breastfeeding, cabbage patch babies) and its hard to deny their unusualness within the vegetable kingdom as being the weight and size of a human head. They are the lingering miserable smell of a bedsit and yet the super-food curative ingredient with life-giving properties. They are beautiful to look at. And they are overlooked.
Now, I know that I don't want to write a show about Cabbage. And lets be clear here, there will be no cooking of cabbage during this show. (can you imagine? the reviews could write themselves! ) But I guess I wanted just to have that contrast of the alchemy mixed with the ordinariness as the central theme.
I had thought this show would be three very well defined stories (see my post from January) but now more and more I'm thinking about the personal. About stories that exist in recipes that we cook, things that are handed down. About women that we love. About women in recipes. And the quiet power of women in kitchens all over the world. The intangibleness of the love and strength thats poured into preparing food for a family.