BAZ Productions’ 2016 re-working of dreamplay tells the story of a young woman who arrives on earth from ‘above’ to discover the mysteries of humanity. Director Sarah Bedi and cast have created a new and unpredictable version of August Strindberg’s 1901 play that reimagines the story for a modern audience. This all-consuming production plays on universal human doubts and anxieties, adding a heightened degree of awareness to the audience experience.
dreamplay is a promenade journey through the sleeping consciousness of ‘the dreamer’, exploring the root of human suffering through an examination of modern life. As the audience enter the tunnels, away from the bustling Waterloo station, they drift into an underground ‘unconscious’ exploration of their dreams through an interdisciplinary combination of music and performance.
The serpentine narrative follows the young woman’s disorienting journey through different settings as she meets a myriad of characters and experiences love, motherhood and loss. Her communications with humanity give her a desolate view of the world as she is met with feelings of fear, shame and self-doubt. Cleansing herself of this modern life is ultimately the only way she can be free.
Sarah Bedi comments, My aim is to explore the experiential nature of dreams and how we feel as we become lost in narratives of our deepest hopes and fears. I’m interested in how we can use live performance to envelop the audience and involve them personally in the intimate experience of a dreamy adventure-quest. My aim is to create a shared dream from a collective unconscious that reflects the experience of what it is to be alive today.
The music for dreamplay will be composed and performed by alternative singer-cellist Laura Moody to complement the visceral, otherworldly nature of the piece. Laura has achieved much acclaim both for her work as a member of string quartet the Elysian Quartet and for the mesmerising music she creates using only solo cello and voice.
Working with scenographers Naomi Kuych-Cohen and Joshua Gadsby, BAZ Productions have used the architecture of the Vaults as the architecture of our minds, creating a trail of incongruous spaces that lead us through the twists and turns of the psyche, through public and private spaces containing our fantasies of hope, humiliations and inevitable disappointments.
Saturday 10th September – Saturday 1st October 2016
http://www.thevaults.london
