Possible program note (together with possible title)

People Spoke

A silent play about freedom of speech

This play will travel to the following countries:

Australia-Indonesia-Malaysia-Myanmar-India-Pakistan-Iran-Turkey-Romania-Ukraine-Poland-Germany

JUSTIFICATION:

Theatre is a great unifier. We see theatre and we come together. Sharing space, time, event. The moment of theatre is a sublime moment between human beings in a room. Often this truth is awkwardly avoided, but it is the source of theatre’s political power.

Theatre is also oppressive. We go to the theatre and we cannot talk, we are forced to sit and listen and watch, our only means of resistence is laughter, or an early exit.

But oppression, as I hope to show, is also a great unifier.

In a first world country like Australia, the country where I am a citizen my passport says, we think of ourselves as privileged. We live our existence freely we think. But Australians are not privelaged. We are oppressed. We are not different from other people.

Your boss is oppressed. Your teacher is oppressed. Your wife is oppressed. Your dog is oppressed. Your political representative is oppressed. Your ____ is oppressed.

People everywhere are trapped in a prison from which there is No Exit.

This thought spurred the theatre I present today, together with the knowledge that the countries I mention above cannot understand each other except through certain tools, like mime, music or ‘story’ (whatever the fuck story means). They also will not understand any cultural reference, or specific local references. But how much of theatre is based on this? On “exclusivity”? On making us feel validated for our choices?

So I approached this play with the idea that I would attempt to make moments which illustrate the individual in oppressed state, without the use of any language or cultural referent. Sort of like what Le Page was trying to do with Lipsynch. A universal play could be viewed with equal power by people in Bangladesh and Indonesia, for example, and that would therefore link them.

Each individual who views this play is part of it b/c your reflections and discussions will shape others and we can have a good convo. I come from a starting point of impending failure so you don’t have to feel like your perception is wrong b/c mine is more wrong.

So. What do you think?

Thx,

Rp.