‘Dart, Eske, sisters. Two great beech trees. Sheltering their flocks.’
Set in 1100BC: two queens – sisters – Dart and Eske, rulers of Dartmoor and Exmoor, govern Devon’s matriarchal society. Off the coast Brutus, an exile from the Mediterranean, has been wrecked by a great storm – unknown to the two sisters.
This production used large-scale puppetry, live music, dance and drama to tell a rich and fast-paced story of violence, love and betrayal and – ultimately -reconciliation.
MED Theatre explored the possibility of matriarchy on Dartmoor and Exmoor and how the interruption of a stranger to normal life might impact the nurturing, but flawed, political landscape created by the two queens of the moors, Dart and Eske, in order to keep their society functioning against the threat posed by a violent world around them.