This project has been laying dormant at the back of my brain since May. (Fermenting like good kimchi shall we say!). Today having a few hours without baby, it suddenly jumped into action and ideas have been bouncing around my head all morning.
Up to this point I have been describing Cabbage as “A story with three women in different kitchens around the world. Women who live on borders. Like N. Ireland, South Korea, Ukraine. And that it’d be performed in kitchens. With songs. And with cooking.”
I still really like the title. ‘Cabbage’ because its simple, its mundane, for me this word conjures up an overcast Wednesday morning, or a Sunday at the laundrette. I like that. I want this project to celebrate everyday mundandity. So the title stays. But something about the content doesn’t feel quite right. Perhaps it’s the fact that I don’t feel comfortable giving voice to women from very different cultures. Experiences that I can only look at as an outsider. For it to be authentic, it has to be real. Or come from a place of truth.
Also the form as described above feels too busy, too complicated. (Its a play, its site specific, its a musical, its got cooking, its a story, its got three different women, its about politics… ) In cooking the best dishes are always simple, not too many flavours. So breaking it all down, the essential ingredients of Cabbage are:
Me
Songs
Recipes
Different global viewpoints of women in their kitchens
Which got me thinking, what if Cabbage was a sung recipe book, taken from different women in their kitchens around the world… Now that, to me, sounds tasty!