Thank you so much for this response, a lovely surprise to find it some time after the event while on tour with something else…It’s very rewarding to hear how the work affected you. Yes, I think it is a piece that can be understood emotionally if not logically…

I love what you say about seeing their presence in their eyes. I know exactly what you’re referring to. I think it’s beautiful when the work takes on a life of its own and is carried [in a kind of cradle-like way] by the performers…it passes from me to them and finds its own life in the space between performers and audience…takes very special performers to really make that happen…

“moving the ground is needed for planting new seeds.”

Yes!
X

I played Sadie in the piece and what a gift it has been to do so. I was extremely interested in working with Hannah as I find her writing so different…visceral and disconcertingly truthful at times! This was particularly true of Sadie for me and I felt a great responsibility to portray this character with utter truth and respect – of course that should be true of all roles an actor undertakes but Sadie felt different – so complex. Alexa comments on how the experience must have been for us as the actors and I think at times ‘mind-blowing’ is probably quite accurate! A few people have mentioned back-story and yes we did decide on certain things together and I also made choices about things which I didn’t necessarily share but all these decisions were important only as far as informing our performances and were never intended to be the things that audiences should think. In fact most of what audiences told me they thought had happened to Sadie went on to be much more interesting than what I had come up with! I must thank the Bike Shed for nurturing an atmosphere that promotes audience feedback as it is both interesting and helpful when developing work and I’m sure will have informed changes for the tour.

I completely agree with Katherine’s thoughts on ‘settling for okay isn’t good enough’ and I feel so lucky to be working with a team who share that ethos – and that is true from all aspects of the production staff. I think it is particularly important with this work as it has been difficult and challenging and Hannah’s writing wouldn’t have been realised as fully as I believe it has had it not been for this group of people.
Much love, see you all in Autumn! x

I was grateful for the thematising of the comedy in Barker’s work last night.

While Barker was chatting, it was plain to see that he has natural comic timing, and is a very funny person.

I also loved the mention of Shepard (his earlier off-off-Broadway experimental stuff, anyway) and, particularly, Beckett in that context. In performance, I’ve found Beckett to be one of the funniest writers around. But, as was discussed last night, it is the acknowledgement and exploration of both the tragic and comic which seeds the anarchic, ecstatic element here, giving permission, within the dark alchemical laboratory of the theatre, to explore the full range of human emotions and experiences, and, especially, to experiment with, feel one‘s way into, sense, and attempt to articulate, to give language and expressive, communicative embodied form, to radically new experiences.

This is, I feel, part of what one can almost call the evolutionary practice of catastrophic theatre.