Alit Kreitz and Anton Mirto have an enviable friendship – one of those that only comes along once in a lifetime, and lasts a lifetime, if you’re lucky. The tale of their relationship reads like a movie script: they met whilst training as actors and observed how their lives ran almost parallel as they embarked on their prospective careers. Women have long been fascinated with the strength and depth of female friendships – Kreitz and Mirto decided to create a performance based on their own relationship and, instead of it being a one-off, continue performing it year after year.
The result is Miss, did it hurt when you fell down from heaven?, a play exploring the idiosyncrasies of female friendships, influenced by the performers’ own lives.
Mirto explains the pair originally wanted to create the performance just for themselves and their friends, but the piece has evolved into an ongoing public performance.
‘Initially, we wanted to make an honest piece about ourselves, for ourselves, by ourselves,’ Mirto recalls. ‘The piece evolved into something quite intimate and perhaps a little voyeuristic, revealing the gap between how we appear from the outside and what is really going on, on the inside.
‘At the time, we thought it would be a good idea to see how the experiences in our real lives would affect our friendship and how these experiences could be shown on stage,’ Mirto continues. ‘The result to date, having performed the project continually over three years, is an ever-evolving live reflection of unspoken concerns between two females.’
‘What we realised after showing it two or three times – and it’s so much fun performing it, it’s quite cathartic – we wanted to keep doing it,’ Mirto enthuses.
‘We thought: wouldn’t it be great to be doing this when we are 60? Wouldn’t it be great if one of us got pregnant and we were still doing it?’
Despite coming from different cultural backgrounds – Kreitz is from Israel and Mirto is of Italian origin – Mirto says they are very similar people. Even their hairstyles have changed in sync, she says, recalling they both had very short hair when the project was conceived in 1999, now they’re both growing it long. The similarities are reflected, in a sense, by the interchangeable relationship in the piece. Sometimes the two women appear to be one; sometimes it is very obvious they are two, Mirto explains.
The result is a series of short performances that form the semblance of a whole, incorporating a variety of different characters to convey the stories. Sprung from a close friendship, the piece is intimate and intense, so much so that some friends of the pair often commented after seeing the performance, they felt they were almost intruding upon a private situation. The response from men and women, Mirto adds, was noticeably different.
‘It’s such a beautiful project,’ she enthuses, ‘I think because it really does look at not only our relationship, but it’s kind of a format for most friendships. A lot of women who came to see the show said they related to it, while a lot of men came out crying.’
One of the common threads throughout the play, Mirto says, is female sensitivity. And after three months of talking about themselves and their feelings, it was somewhat unavoidable to come up with such a female and sensitive piece, she adds.
For example, Mirto describes a scene – illustrated through the promotional photograph for the play – which refers to an anonymous 18th century painting. The scene is constructed around a pea – a reference to the princess and the pea, alluding to female sensitivity – which rolls out from beneath the bed before becoming an analogy for a baby, then a nipple.
‘Eventually, one of us wants to eat it, so to stop her, the other character reveals her breasts,’ Mirto says. ‘Then the other reveals her breasts and we end up with this image which is recognised by people who are familiar with the 18th century painting. Then we address the audience, asking “have you been listening to anything we’ve been saying?” Meaning, we know you are looking at our breasts. It’s a really funny scene, but honest at the same time.
‘It’s a very female piece but I don’t think it’s necessarily a feminist piece. It’s quite gently revealing of female behaviour,’ Mirto explains.
But how has it affected their friendship, I wonder, working in such close proximity with delicate subject material?
‘It’s hard, but it can be quite beautiful,’ Mirto reflects, adding that herself and Kreitz are like sisters. ‘We often see things in the same way but from two different perspectives. We don’t like compromising, we’ll battle it out until we have both reached what we want to say and how we want to say it.
‘I think it comes from a really deep respect of each other’s work. We share something very unique and know each other really well.’
‘Miss, did it hurt when you fell down from heaven?’ November 30, 8pm at Yorkshire Dance,3 St Peter’s Buildings, St Peter’s Square, Leeds LS9 8AH. Box Office: 0113 243 8765, email admin@yorkshiredance.org.uk For further information about Alit Kreitz and Anton Mirto’s company, A2, email a2company@hotmail.com
