Feeling Lonely at Parties takes place in a world where the population have their mood regulated by music played over headphones, can you tell us a little about how you created and developed this idea?
A number of things actually. For the last couple of years I have noticed that I and the people around me have experienced mental health problems which have negatively affected relationships. There is also a lack of understanding, even now, for people with mental health issues which causes people to discriminate against them or mistake the uncontrollable illness for a display for bad human characteristics. When love is added to that, it can be really difficult to form and sustain healthy relationships. This I feel is due to this lack of understanding but also from self-doubt and a lack of security that comes with having poor mental health. For me personally, I have also found this to make me feel quite lonely in the past, even in situations where I was amongst friends, or environments that are supposed to be happy. Such as parties. And what makes it worse is that everyone else seems so happy in those situations, which makes you feel even lonelier.
So there was all these feelings, and experiences that the people around me and I were going through, and I just wanted to vent it all out in the form of theatre, which is my way of dealing with my own negative emotions. I also use music frequently in my work, and knew that there would be a continuous soundtrack, and that the piece in some shape or form should feel like a party. As well as this, I am a story teller and always which to tell a story in everything that I make, so began to construct a story that could explore the themes I wanted to explore, in the form I wanted to explore them, thus Feeling Lonely at Parties was born.
I know that all of this is really deep but I’m a big believer in creating work that takes the audience on an emotional journey. So the show is as joyful and funny as it is dramatic and sometimes heart-breaking. And that’s what I have tried my best to do with this story. We have also developed the narrative a lot since we performed in Camden Fringe Festival so that we could delve more into this dystopian world a little more and make it more dramatically satisfying.
FLAP is all about communication but performed entirely without dialogue, can you tell us about the process of developing a physical language for the show?
My university had a strong focus on physical theatre, and as I was coming up with the idea for the show I knew I wanted it to be movement based and sort of explore emotions and feelings through a none-verbal language. Especially as the characters in the show live in a world where they have to hide their feelings anyway, their bodies would be the only thing they have to communicate with. I also believe that bodies can communicate even more than words can sometimes. Luckily I found other Middlesex University Students and Alumni, who share the same movement skills and physical language, to work on the show and form the company. Once we got together and knew that we wanted to use movement with no words, we would just improvise specific scenes and situations where they could only use their bodies. We also use mime a lot, which is a very simple but very clear way of telling the story. It is also very fun to play with and brings out some of the more joyful parts of the show.
As an international ensemble, how does having a wide range of backgrounds, experiences and voices affect the work you create?
It’s a constant source of inspiration. We are such a diverse group in terms of where we come from and the experiences we have had. It constantly brings different perspectives into the rehearsal room and layers our work with a range of different tools that have been obtained by company members before coming to Middlesex University. It also shows us daily how much we have in common despite our differences. The themes that this show explores are important to all of us even though we come from very different places. That’s just a nice thing to be reminded of. In a world full of division and hatred it feels like we are creating an environment of togetherness as well. Moving forward I definitely want to expand the variety of people that we work with and hopefully make the world just a little bit kinder and the arts a lot more accessible.
FLAP has previously been performed at the Camden Fringe, can you tell us about your experience there? And what (if any) changes can we expect from the show?
Camden Fringe was the best week of my life. I absolutely loved it. It was the first full show I had produced, and that our company had produced outside of university and I wasn’t expecting to be as successful as it was. It had an almost sold out audience for every performance and it got such good feedback. The thing is though, a lot of the show was poor weirdly. I wasn’t as good of a director as I am now. It’s only been 6 months, but I have grown SO MUCH. Furthermore, the story I had written and its structure was quite repetitive and lacked a dramatic build up, I felt. So it said something that it did so well, and that people really enjoyed it, even with a show that I didn’t think was the best it could be. However, for The Space we are bringing a show with a new story structure, and a re-jigged second half that we feel people are going to really like. Furthermore all the company have gotten so much better at what they do. They’ve all been working hard since we did Camden, with members doing The National Youth Theatre, Starting MA’s in Theatre Arts and, for myself, an MA in Theatre Directing. We are just more skilled and I feel like that is helping us make a much better show. I’m very excited to bring it to The Space.
Let’s have something a little lighter! We’ve heard of being pursued by a bear, can you tell us about being Pursued by a Dragon?
Being pursued by a Dragon is a lot more fun, because getting pursued by one always leads you into a world that is different to our own. Even if it has similarities. Also, dragons aren’t real so anything can happen with them. The Possibilities are endless.
You’re in the world of the show. One album or artist is going to be played to you on loop forever, what do you pick?
That’s a tough one. Any artist you listen to on loop would get really annoying after a while. And then there’s the fact if that ever happened it would put me in the dystopian world of Feeling Lonely at Parties, which would be horrific. Probably would have to go with The Handsome Poets if I had a gun to my head though. But only with a gun to my head.
And finally, you’re at a party, where will we find you?
You would find me in quiet room playing board games with my friends.
January 14th – 18th