I’m not just talking about books…

Before I say goodbye to – and (attempt to) let go of – the RSC’s sensational Making Mischief festival (all the photographs of which are by Richard Lakos), there are a few things I need to get off my chest. But first – and I should probably give them their own page: so that I can continually refine them, formalize them, and then link to them… rather than keep on reiterating them – a reminder of the Bardic Principles of Theatre and Art (for want of a better moniker):

I appreciate that many simply go to the theatre to be entertained…. I don’t.

     I go to be challenged. I go to have my mind opened; my heart broken; my soul riven. I go to be educated. I go to weep; to grow – emotionally and psychologically – to laugh; to discover my place in the world that is created in front of me, as well as its relevance to the troubling complexities that exist beyond its literal and figurative bounds. I go to be absorbed into that new interior world; to escape from the old exterior one. I go to be distracted from my constant pain with an injection of a different sort of masochistic agony. I go to retain my sanity. I go to witness and admire deities transform themselves beyond the ken of us mere mortals; to mark miracles. I go to be shocked; to have my opinions and beliefs confirmed, or challenged and transformed; to see and hear and feel things that I have never seen and heard and felt before. And may never see and hear and feel again. I go because it is incredible, unreal: but also because I know I will still believe. I go because I know that, each and every time, I will emerge transformed. In other words, I go to connect to everything I am not; to have my life enriched. I go because it is Art; because Art is humankind’s greatest invention; its saving grace; its redemption; and because it speaks to me so directly, as only Art can. I also go, because, to be blunt, it is so bloody awesome!

     And if I hadn’t gone, I wouldn’t have experienced some of the greatest plays ever written, performed by some of the greatest actors ever born…. And my life would be so much poorer for that lack; and I would not know that, in the blackest depths of my despair, there could be – there was – salvation. So I will – I must – continue to go: to discover yet more reasons for going. And – of course – to be entertained…!

I would like to supplement this with some words (“yet more reasons for going”) shared yesterday – before the final shows of Always Orange and Fall of the Kingdom, Rise of the Foot Soldier – by Laura Howard (who is (wonderful) in both plays):

When we create or appreciate art, we set free the spirit trapped within. That is why art arouses such joy. Art – whether skilfully executed or not – is the emotion, the pleasure of expressing life as it is. Those who see art are moved by its passion and strength, its intensity and beauty. That is why it is impossible to separate life from art. Political and economic developments may seem to dominate the new, but culture and education are the forces that actually shape an age, since they transform the human heart.

– Daisaku Ikeda: Wisdom for Modern Life (27 August 2016)

I may not agree with everything stated here: especially the words “joy”, “pleasure” and “beauty” (I think their antonyms are equally valid; and perhaps crucial…). And I do not, for one moment, expect everyone who sees art to be moved by it (see above). But I do concur with the general proposition.

When I wrote my original “principles” – almost a manifesto – I was discussing “theatre as therapy”: because of my current war with depression and PTSD (which I am beginning to win, one tailgating truce at a time…). And I felt ‘safe’ in doing so: because I am undergoing formal treatment. However, it occurred to me on Wednesday, at my second viewing of Always Orange, that the play itself contains several ‘trauma triggers’ – although I accept that these are so specific that there will be very few people watching that might be affected by them. This is not to say, though, that those, such as myself, who suffer from PTSD with other origins – but who aren’t being treated – won’t be similarly disturbed.

This is from my original review:

I described Always Orange as “devastating… important and necessary theatre”…. Having written twice, recently… about “theatre as therapy”, this was probably the toughest (but most rewarding) of the three plays to sit through, for me: its depiction of post‑traumatic memory searingly (and, in my case, tear-jerkingly, shoulder-shudderingly) accurate – and perfectly portrayed by the mesmerizing Ifan Meredith, as Joe (“a British man”).

Having seen audience members turn a funny colour when Gloucester’s eyes are gouged out; yet laugh at the decapitation of Cloten – an act that would seem horribly contemporary… – it is obviously impossible to predict how people will react. I myself tittered at the warning sign outside King Lear, at the Royal Theatre in Northampton – “During this performance there will be: Smoke, Gun Shots, Smoking, Flashing Lights, Strobes, Loud Bangs” – because of the absence of any mention of the frequent violence, and the resultant copious amounts of blood that are spilled. And yet, if there is one Shakespeare play that I would not venture near, it is Titus Andronicus…! (But I say this, of course, having been forewarned by both reading the text, and by others’ experiences.)

Before you have a go at me for being over-sensitive – although this is surely a state we all want to be in, if we’re going to be moved to the max…? – I’m not demanding EastEnders‑type “If you have been affected by issues…” paragraphs printed in red ink on the front covers of programmes; nor for leaflets for the Samaritans to be handed out at every show. (I do know that this would be impractical. Mebbe.)

What I am asking – as an extension of considering the physically disabled, when designing access policies – is that we consider how the power of theatre affects individuals – especially those with mental health problems – in different ways: hoping that, firstly (and accepting that there is a suspension of disbelief for many), well-directed and -produced drama will, in most cases, be beneficial in some way. Secondly, though – where theatre deliberately sets out to provoke: as the four plays that made up Making Mischief so successfully did… – we (both creators and consumers) need to be prepared for those provocations to not only upset (which, surely, is one of the many duties of art: “I go to be challenged…”); but, occasionally, cross some sort of personal boundary. And we need to be ready to make allowances; deal with the consequences; and accept responsibility (not that there are – or should be – easy answers…).

The crux of this issue is probably hidden somewhere in the mix of how we are affected (where those “personal boundaries” lie; what experiences we bring with us; and our general sensitivities); the motivation behind the challenge itself (is this a wake-up call; are our beliefs being teased or taunted; or are we deliberately being insulted and/or offended…?); and the context (which is why relaxed performances are such a wonderful thing…). It is therefore a tricky balance to achieve: especially if one wants to (as one should) instigate change (via drama) – and especially when so many people are resistant to it; and only see and hear what they want to.

To my way of thinking: even with such considerations, there are risks that are worth taking – otherwise theatre (as a subset of art) becomes diluted and ineffectual. I would rather be shaken to my core (physically, mentally, emotionally – even in my current, relatively-fragile state), than bored: “I appreciate that many simply go to the theatre to be entertained…. I don’t.” And, yes, this can be achieved with texts that are centuries old: whether reinterpreted through the eyes of a contemporary director; or revised by the pen of a modern playwright. Otherwise, the works of Shakespeare, Marlowe and Jonson; Aeschylus, Sophocles and Aristophanes – although simply reading their words can be transformative – would have been tossed in the bin years ago.

Thanks to the wonderful access policies of the RSC (especially the saintly Jim Morris), I had a reserved seat front and centre for the last performance of Always Orange. I could blame it on the captions at the first viewing; or trying to see through tears at the second; but, this time, everything clicked: as if some sort of automated “aleatoric” jigsaw had finally completed itself in my head with a resounding – yet whispered – “Bang”. (Knowing I would not see it again, perhaps, additionally, my concentration was dialled up even further than normal?)

This is, I think, a ‘writerly’ play – Fraser Grace’s words are “of the highest quality and laser-guided precision (the prologue reads as poetry; yet the craft is invisible)” – almost certainly, if I had the talent, the kind I would like to author. But I wonder if this ‘precision writing’ is at the root of some people’s emotional disconnection with it…? (Ignoring the cardboard boxes – perhaps – and any other ‘Faustian’ parallels – there is a quality to the text that, for me, recalls Marlowe: especially the rapid “tragicomic” contrasts of tongue-in-cheek and transcendent; as well as the intrinsic lyricism and power.)

I admit that (as detailed above), Joe’s scrambled memory and resultant actions speak to, connect with, me with heart-piercing accuracy. I am Joe. The flying metal that shredded my mind (“I’m a mist now”); the paper cuts that flailed my skin; the thunderous collision of books and stage… all too close for comfort. But, if I am the only person (which I don’t for one moment believe…) that sees through and past the wordplay, the surface jokes, the thudding visual metaphors; who is then ‘spoken to’ loudly and clearly… – a bloody immersion in belief; rather than a dismissal of doubt – well, is that how you measure a play’s success (at least on the individual, micro level…)? Or maybe it is just one of those dramas – like Cymbeline, “actually a damnably good read” – that just works better on the page?

Just not for me. This was truth writ in blazing, large capital letters. It hurt like hell – especially when Joe bellowed “I don’t remember anything.” But there is always comfort in understanding: whether it is your own; or someone-else’s shared vantage point and sympathy.

There is a risk, of course, that, in also weeping all the way through Fall of the Kingdom, Rise of the Foot Soldier (and for the fourth time), I was only following the same well-trodden path of “middle-class tolerance” as represented by “good person” Hawkins. And yet my belief (my personal reading; taking all the above into account) is that everyone’s perspective (moulded by nature and nurture) carries some form of validity – even if we violently disagree with it. The problem lies in actually establishing equality… – of perspective; of achievement; of entitlement; of opportunity… – although my emphasis here (from the viewpoint of a middle-aged, working-class, well-educated deaf and disabled man, with ethnicity running through his extended family like a rich vein of gold) may be different from yours. “This is our England.” YMMV, as they say.

But that is where the potency of this play – as it is performed here – lies. The actors in the principal roles (apart from Ifan Meredith as Archie, I would guess) could all be seen to have sympathy (if not empathy) with those they represent. The actors playing the Chorus, definitely not. This dichotomy – “the deep wound of cultural tension cutting through modern England” – for me (“from the viewpoint”, etc.) fuels its impact: propelling the already powerful script – again laced with poetry – into the political stratosphere. However, for others watching, I can accept that they may only see their personal prejudices – whether similar or different to mine – reinforced.

In a nutshell… this is why we need art that forces us to question ourselves. (That’s why “I was glad, though, that I saw [Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again.] twice on the same day”.) If you’re not willing to face those inner demons (not necessarily face them down…), then just go and be “entertained”. That’s fine. But I worry that you’re missing something, missing out on something, in doing so….

Postscript…

I found a shred of paper – a shard from “the sea of glass” – trapped in my copy of the text of Always Orange. “I’m very collected. Thankyou.” But I wasn’t… – not for some time. “I remembered something, from before.”

But be prepared to bleed…

Design by RSC Visual Communications

Saturday was the first official captioned day at (the new) The Other Place (TOP) – thank you, Stefanie Bell…! – although I appeared to be the only one sitting in the specially-reserved seats at the back of The Studio Theatre… – and, with Early‑Bard (sorry) tickets going for a mere 70p a pop (the price they were when Buzz Goodbody’s magical Tin Hut originally opened for business in 1974), I decided to see all of the Making Mischief festival’s four performances: Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again. – then, after the shortest of breaks, Always Orange – and, in the evening, Fall of the Kingdom, Rise of the Foot Soldier, followed, finally, by Revolt…. Again. (Ahem.)

I may be wrong, but I believe that most visitors to Stratford-upon-Avon – and then the RSC – come expecting non-stop Shakespeare; or maybe – if the RST is sold out – (will settle for) one of his less-famous contemporaries at the other, older (more interesting) end of the building. (After all, this is the universal, gravitational centre of Bardolatry.) And yet some of the most memorable productions I have seen here recently have stemmed from the pens of living writers – off the top of my head: Hecuba, Oppenheimer, and Mark Ravenhill’s imaginative reworking of Brecht’s A Life of Galileo.

This is not to say those “visitors” are in any way wrong; nor that the RSC isn’t a great (maybe the best) purveyor of English Renaissance theatre. Just that the place (and the organization) has a depth and breadth to its skills and repertoire that I think would surprise quite a few: were they to pay attention, for a while, to the many talents both before and behind the curtain. And with Erica Whyman as Deputy Artistic Director – “taking a particular lead on the development of new work [and] on extending equality and diversity across all RSC activities” – even I am beginning to expect the unexpected. As I often say: this is A Good Thing!

This is not well, my lord, this is not well.

What say you to it? Will you again unknit

This churlish knot of all-abhorred war?

And move in that obedient orb again

Where you did give a fair and natural light,

And be no more an exhal’d meteor,

A prodigy of fear, and a portent

Of broached mischief to the unborn times?

– Shakespeare: Henry IV, part I (V.i.14-21)

This too-short Making Mischief festival – building on the success of 2014’s Midsummer Mischief – is just one example of such a positive (hydra-headed – and yet somehow utterly cohesive: thematically, if not quite qualitatively) creature. Although, as you should expect, this is “mischief” of a dark, Puckish kind – full of calamities, catastrophes; wicked actions, evil deeds, harmful schemes… – rather than of japery and jollity. And these first three plays – Joanne, the fourth and final, only runs for three performances, sadly, later this week… – left me and my mind so instantly boggled (and in so many ways) that I struggled to put together anything coherent immediately afterwards (as is my wont). Hence the uncharacteristically late (meaning tardy, rather than my usual insomnia-generated) appearance of this review. Some of you may also notice that, the greater the production, the fewer words I manage to string together….

I had entered TOP as it opened, at 10:00 – expecting a queue for those bargain tickets (£2.80 for a whole day of challenging theatre: wow!) – but I needn’t have worried. I was second in line (and managed to grab copies of the play texts – which cost just a tad more! – at the same time). And then I basically set up camp there, for the day: leaving – with a few (loo) breaks; a smattering of really interesting conversations; several coffees; an excellent chickpea wrap; and a smidgen of cake: all for good behaviour… – over twelve hours later! [After a 97‑hour migraine, I needed urgently to make friends with my iPad again; and at least pretend to look busy: trying to catch up with my ever-spiralling to-do list – despite a need, in reality, to take things physically easy.] I had also entered wearing my why, this is hell, nor am I out of it. T-shirt: which, as the day flowed by me, seemed increasingly apposite.

Review. He wrote. Review again.

Revolt – The company – photo by Richard Lakos/RSC

This review is not well behaved.

The Bard of Tysoe examines the irony, cunning linguistic stunts, and increasing lack of connection and conviction, which disturbed him (but not as expected) for an hour, twice, on the sixth of August; and asks what’s stopping him from having a ball (or two).

I really, really wanted to fall for Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again. by Alice Birch (and not just to get another rubber stamp on my Feminism loyalty card). It seemed a rather palpable hit, the first time around. And I rather enjoy messing, er, around with language (good, bad, or anywhere in between – however you wish, personally, to define those adjectives); as well as truly loving what Erica Whyman – who directs this – has brought to the RSC: with her programming, her insight, inclusivity, and the obvious change of culture.

However, from the perspective of someone who writes (but only to keep himself living – not for one), I found the manipulation of language, here, just too clever for its own good. [I was tempted to write that Birch uses a sledgehammer – actually a fire-axe… – to try and crack nuts: but it came out all wrong.] And yet, whole sections of the text were – surprisingly (not for me, as reviewer; but for you, dear reader) – truly brilliant.

Revolt – Emmanuella Cole; Emma Fielding – photo by Richard Lakos/RSC

Just before I went in, I had written in an email – on a slightly different subject – that “What it all boils down to is the ‘communication’… the connection… – but that communication/connection must be a two-way process: the [viewer] has to comprehend what the performer is telling them”. And this play demonstrates such a need in many, many ways – without providing any answers: either internally- or externally-evoked. [Please note: I am not saying that is A Bad Thing.] It also – for a male viewer (despite my self-awarded feminist credentials) – is just a little (but only, disappointingly, a little) discomfiting. As the short programme states:

This play is not well behaved.

Alice Birch examines the language, behaviour and forces that shape women in the 21st century and asks what’s stopping us from doing something truly radical to change them.

However, that signposted bad behaviour – maybe I just am a typical, old-fashioned bloke, after all: who just thinks he ‘gets’ equality because of his overlapping membership of several minorities…?! (see Fall of the Kingdom – where it may all get sort of ‘meta’…) – feels like an excuse (almost – and I’m sorry (really?) to use such the C‑bomb, here… – a c‑c‑c‑c‑contrivance). It may have been “discomfiting” – and, in my ever-so-’umble opinion (whatever that’s worth), rightly so – but it never felt genuinely shocking (a state which it seemed ravenously to aspire to); nor that radical (ditto). Its overall impact, therefore, for me, was actually quite weak. [As Miles Davis once posited quite brilliantly: So What.]

Yes, there were those individual scenes of excellence, and fleeting moments of engaging emotion and real humour: which, of course, I did connect with. However, I felt the play’s use of – although it felt like its descent into… – what I can only describe as Beckettian literary impressionism (aren’t I a clever boy?) was something of an overwrought and target-missing soggy something-or-other. (Must try softer.)

Revolt – Beth Park – photo by Richard Lakos/RSC

In other words, this was a drama that I felt stumbled too many times, before eventually pratfalling waaaaay short of its potential. It didn’t help that all its working-outs were all-too-visible. For instance, its non-too-subtle overuse of repeated motifs (bluebells, potatoes, watermelons – basically, my usual weekend Waitrose shopping list…) is all too self-knowing and obvious. And, to be really blunt, I felt I was being manipulated – which is, in the end (ba‑dum tish), why I wasn’t moved. [I really do like to think for myself, y’know – despite what may appear as a consistent lack of evidence of such activity on these pages.] And the blurry projected text – instructions…? (but for whom…?) – just felt downright patronizing. (Maybe it’s Cymbeline…?)

Perhaps this – after all is said, done; kicked the (red) bucket, etc. – is the point? As a man (cough), perhaps I’m supposed to feel like this? But I didn’t need to engage my mind or my heart that much; and when I did, it wasn’t with any consistency. This, I’m afraid, therefore did not fulfil enough of the Bardic dramatic requisites to win me over. [Shocking, eh? (Or not.)]

Revolt – Emmanuella Cole; Emma Fielding – photo by Richard Lakos/RSC

Strangely, I was glad, though, that I saw it twice on the same day. To be honest (and serious), I think it crucial that works like this exist to remind us that our society has not moved on much (unlike moi) from its patriarchal, paternalistic roots. I just don’t think this is the mechanism by/through which converts will be won. However, it did – or appears to have, in my tiny, er, mind – inspire the other two dramas it bookended (expect raves galore, instead of barely-concealed sardonicism); as well as some truly magnificent, brave and breathtaking performances from Beth Park, Emma Fielding, Emmanuella Cole, and odd-person-out – “And we’ll eradicate all men…” – Robert Boulter. [Normal service will be resumed after the break.]

Revolt – Robert Boulter – photo by Richard Lakos/RSC

The future’s bleak…

Sweet flowering peace, the root of happy life,

Is quite abandoned and expulst the land;

Instead of whom ransacked constraining war

Sits like to ravens upon your houses’ tops;

Slaughter and mischief walk within your streets,

And, unrestrained, make havoc as they pass;

The form whereof even now myself beheld

Upon this fair mountain whence I came.

For so far of as I directed mine eyes,

I might perceive five cities all on fire,

Corn fields and vineyards, burning like an oven;

And, as the reaking vapour in the wind

Turned but aside, I like wise might discern

The poor inhabitants, escaped the flame,

Fall numberless upon the soldiers’ pikes.

– Shakespeare: Edward III (III.ii.47-61)

Orange – Donna Banya (Amna) – photo by Richard Lakos/RSC

I described Always Orange as “devastating… important and necessary theatre” as I sat down in Susie’s Cafe Bar to recover (not that I think I will, could, or want to…). Having written twice, recently – Doctor Faustus, of course; and then Mrs Shakespeare – about “theatre as therapy”, this was probably the toughest (but most rewarding) of the three plays to sit through, for me: its depiction of post-traumatic memory searingly (and, in my case, tear-jerkingly, shoulder-shudderingly) accurate – and perfectly portrayed by the mesmerizing Ifan Meredith, as Joe (“a British man”).

Orange – Ifan Meredith (Joe) – photo by Richard Lakos/RSC

Fraser Grace’s writing is of the highest quality and laser-guided precision (the prologue reads as poetry; yet the craft is invisible). And, although he describes, in the (post)script, the perils of being ‘open’ – apart from the first and last, “the scenes… can be presented in any order” – I would really like to see the drama again (and again) with some of that chance shuffling (what I think of as ‘aleatoric’ art). This, perhaps, would emphasize “Joe’s confusion as a trick of memory – a product purely of his psychological state” more – something that is apparent, but not quite pivotal (from my extremely subjective perspective), in the ‘fixed’ version presented here.

Orange – Bally Gill (No Name) – photo by Richard Lakos/RSC

At the risk of imposing my own (so proximate that my face is identifiable from the marks left behind on the “so much glass in this place”) interpretation (or even will) on the play: with Joe so obviously the central character, I believe such variability would go some way to reflecting and stressing (if not actually explaining) that his “head and confidence is scrambled not because he is by nature a confused person, but because of an immensely traumatic event that happens in the physical world.” [And yes – as the founding member of Marloweholics Anonymous – I would be prepared to watch lots of these different iterations one after another.]

Orange – Bally Gill (Parvendra); Sam Cole (Niall); Bianca Stephens (Lorna) – photo by Richard Lakos/RSC

The company, here, is uniformly stunning – a perfect match for those perfect, powerful words. Not just the actors; but the creative team, too. There are some magical, abrupt, shocking – truly shocking – silences. Everything – whatever sense it affects – is there for a reason. This is so real. It is “how we live now” – but feels like it was written tomorrow. The unexpected connections the play makes are so utterly, chillingly plausible. Its switches of perspective non-judgmental and almost empathic.

Orange – Tyrone Huggins (Farouk) – photo by Richard Lakos/RSC

I don’t want to go into too much detail, for fear of revealing too much. All I would say is that this – by the slimmest of margins (see below) – is the one festival play I need to (and will) see again. (I would also suggest that you need to, as well.) This salient production defines why theatre is so crucial. It is also the RSC at the very top of its (perhaps unexpected) game.

Orange – Syreeta Kumar (Rusha) – photo by Richard Lakos/RSC

By the way: playing Joni Mitchell’s exquisite A Case of You as we left the theatre was a tiny act of apposite genius… – albeit one amongst so many.

Please don’t let this be my England…

Kingdom – Donna Banya (Aisha) – photo by Richard Lakos/RSC

The journey to write this play has been one of mixed emotions.

I don’t have all the answers.

What I do know is this;

We must get angry. We must stay angry. We must get organised.

Anger without strategy is futile.

Above all else we must connect, hear and protect each other.

Silence is not an option. It is in fact complicitness.

We are more powerful than we know.

Collectively.

– Somalia Seaton: Fall of the Kingdom, Rise of the Foot Soldier (Foreword)

Kingdom – Syreeta Kumar (Shabz); Laura Howard (Hawkins); Ifan Meredith (Archie) – photo by Richard Lakos/RSC

Utilizing most of the same brilliant cast of Always Orange, this similarly whacked me in the chest and head with vicious aptness. Not for personal reasons, this time; but topical ones. Donna Banya as Aisha was particularly persuasive – shattering, even. And yet it was Syreeta Kumar, as Shabz, who usurped my soul – just ahead of Laura Howard as Hawkins: whose disintegration, in parallel with devastating events, crumpled with transparent truth. Again, though, it is the cumulative forcefulness of the whole company – beginning, of course, with the playwright’s deep incisions into contemporary urban society (“Set in London. The belly of our beast. Heightened and dangerous.”) – which makes this so convincingly potent.

Kingdom – The company – photo by Richard Lakos/RSC

The repeated use of cubes – of various shapes, sizes, materials, contents – was a disquieting leitmotiv: but one, I think, which communicates in many ways. Not only is this a world of rigidly-compartmentalized thoughts; finite resources; fractured factions; of high-rise, faceless, empty blocks; it is one of fortification and hard edges (linking directly back to Revolt…) – and one where such established (establishment?) solidity needs to be continually softened, interrogated, challenged, disrupted; where boxes, containers (of any kind), need emptying, their contents modified or replaced; where, instead of being scattered, organization and cohesion could render them a concrete force for change. Thus, the masked Chorus was devastating in its tripartite, opaque, shape-shifting anonymity – especially contrasted with the clarity of the intensely personal portraits at the drama’s heart….

Kingdom – Laura Howard (Hawkins); Tyrone Huggins/Ifan Meredith/Bally Gill (Chorus) – photo by Richard Lakos/RSC

Go. Just go. Okay? And then get angry. Then organized. Really angry. And really, really organized.

Anger is to make you effective. That’s its survival function. That’s why it’s given to you. If it makes you ineffective, drop it like a hot potato.

– Philip Roth

Kingdom – Laura Howard (Hawkins); Ifan Meredith (Archie) – photo by Richard Lakos/RSC

Erica Whyman writes in the introduction to the scripts of Orange and Kingdom that they were “commissioned… in response to the provocation ‘What is unsayable in the 21st Century?’”. The answer – as I think it should be – is absolutely nothin’. And both these telling dramas demonstrate this rejoinder not just meaningfully and successfully; but, as Whyman says, “with exhilarating honesty [and] elegant and determined theatricality.” Buzz, I am sure, would be proud. Me? I’m still quite thrillingly boggled.

It is perhaps the artist’s most urgent responsibility – to disrupt, to perturb, to disconcert in order to reveal new ways of imagining the world – to make serious mischief. I hope these plays encourage us all to see a little differently.

– Erica Whyman, Deputy Artistic Director, July 2016