I WENT TO YOUR GRAVE TODAY (Gate Generations/Gate Theatre)***

 

By Dave 

Link: https://www.gatetheatre.co.uk/gate-generations 

Available until: Unknown

I Went to Your Grave Today is part of the series of short scenes paying tribute to past Gate Theatre productions. Some actors are performing scenes from the plays, others have rewritten them, others have written something in response to the play.

This is a poem written by (and also performed by) Lauren Ziebart in response to Death and the Ploughman by Johannes Von Saaz. The play was written in about 1400 and produced by the Gate Theatre in 2002 and translated from the original Middle High German by Michael West

Judging from British Theatre Guide and the Guardian’s informative reviews, Death and the Ploughman is a poetic piece of writing (it sounds like it isn’t really a play) which looks at the inevitability of death. It sounds like the original piece has two characters, Death and the Ploughman, but the Gate Theatre’s production, directed by Deborah Bruce, had three very different actors sharing the role of Death.

Lauren’s poem is definitely on the same sort of subject as the original work. The poem is from the point of view of someone (maybe the Ploughman but not necessarily) who visits the grave of someone they love and wonders what death really means and how their memories will change over the years.

You don’t need to be familiar with Death and the Ploughman to understand what’s going in this poem and I think that’s really important. These films do need to work as standalone pieces as not everyone will have seen the play and even if they did, it was nearly 20 years ago. It doesn’t sound like a well-known piece and not everyone will want to search for the original and read that before they watch the video.

Lauren has done a great job with this poem. It’s moving, it’s performed with sincerity and there are some really great images. I won’t give too much away but there’s a bit where jigsaws are mentioned and I really liked that. The poem is a really interesting way of looking at death, sad and very loving but accepting of what has happened.

I Went to Your Grave Today is very short but it’s very deep and full of meaning.