THE director and writer of a touring play which uses cutting-edge technology to symbolise mental health and neurodiversity has spoken about how theatre can help educate and entertain audiences.
Writer Tom Powell who won the UK’s biggest playwrighting award called The Papatango Prize in 2021 said ‘Surfacing’ - at Mercury Theatre on May 4 for one night only - is about the “strange and surprising spiralling” of an NHS therapist after she meets a service user like herself.
Director Stephen Bailey said: “It is a slightly different way of looking at mental health, whatever that is.
“It is interested in exploring what things we may pathologise, which we might not need to be, and how the current mental health system can be limited not just in time but approach."
Stephen and Tom worked with research consultants NHS therapist Dr Ruth Cooper and NHS talking therapist Jasmine Martinez.
Tom says the show had the goal of being an “exciting and dramatic contribution to an important conversation."
During the play, the actors will be wearing sensors on their wrists and ankles which respond to movement and create a corresponding sound – which cannot be heard through online video.
Stephen said the sound, which links to video, shows how the “real world” can connect with “hallucinations” critiquing how two the two “connect in a way not expected” on stage which he says can mirror real life experience.
Tom said when Luc, portrayed by Sarah Livingstone, is swimming on stage and using physical gestures, the audience can hear and be immersed in that experience through sound including when she gets into danger.
Stephen added: “It's about unifying mind, body, and world in the experience of being neurodiverse."
Stephen also said that he saw an early prototype version of the technology in 2018, with the sensors getting much smaller since then, and that they are one of the first to use it in the UK.
Stephen said the play “was not a lecture but an experience”, with Tom adding: "It’s a fantastic story and one of the great things about telling this story also is it means that you should expect visual and audio delights and surprises.”
“It's going to a multi-sensory delight for the audience.”
Book tickets here: mercurytheatre.co.uk/event/surfacing/
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