On Emotion

Synopsis

No aspect of our mental life is more important to the quality and meaning of our existence than emotions. They are what make life worth living, or sometimes ending. They are what motivate our behaviour and influence our beliefs. Maverick Theatre-maker Mick Gordon and neurologist Paul Broks join forces with acclaimed puppeteers, Blind Summit, to use and abuse the tools of the theatre, an art form which creates and manipulates feelings, to explore the complicated and crucial arena of human emotion.

Our Review:

13 November 2008

The latest “theatre essay” by director Mick Gordon and neuropsychologist Paul Broks is a tense domestic comedy dressed up as a demonstration of emotional dysfunction. It looks good, like a low budget Complicite-style space odyssey through the night sky, with four actors and a puppet spaceman, but it generates minimal theatrical heat, and never answers its own central question: are we the puppets of our emotions?

Stephen (James Wilby), a cognitive behavioural therapist, is treating, and fantasising about, Anna (Caroline Catz), a suicidal puppet maker who has had a miscarriage. Anna’s best friend is Stephen’s daughter, Lucy (Rhian Blythe), an actress who is always falling in love with unsuitable men and becomes pregnant. Stephen’s son Mark (Mark Down) – he’s a child, played by an adult - has an obsession with Star Trek.

While Stephen is preparing a lecture and incidentally asserting that Hamlet anticipates his calling by nearly four centur...

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Latest User Review

mm - 11 December 2008:

Nice idea but stragely trite in th end....

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