Bethan Huws

The Chocolate Bar 2005 (production still / photography by Hugo Glendinning) Film, 35mm, black & white and colour, sound, 4 minutes 25 seconds Written and directed by Bethan Huws Performed by Rhys Ifans Produced by Chapter STIWDIO and Dieter Association With the support of The Arts Council of Wales, The Esmee Fairbairn Foundation, The Elephant Trust, Chapter Arts Centre Cardiff and Dieter Association Paris

The Chocolate Bar (film script)

Welsh culture is based on literature, a literature which remains largely inaccessible through its lack of translation. This tradition is reflected in its theatre and more recently in film through its actors. In earlier times it’s the male actors who dressed-up as women in the theatre. Rhys Ifans is dressed as a Welsh lady. Marcel Duchamp also dressed as a woman. There is a joke in the text between Mars (the planet) and Mars (the chocolate bar). The “bottle-rack”, one of Duchamp’s earliest ready-mades is lit up to resemble an object from space (Mars). It came from Duchamp’s head.

The Chocolate Bar (text)

A humorous (ironic) text on the failure of communication between two people. The rounder more complete character speaks of the same thing throughout and is therefore consistent. Whilst the more hardened character keeps changing the subject (three times) and will only talk about what they want to talk about. This is something we all know from our own conversational life. The two characters are incompatible, or are at odds with each other from the start. That is, from the very first two lines of dialogue.

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Bethan Huws