I.P.A.R Catalogue Document
https://www.blurb.co.uk/books/9325654-come-home
For my final year, I conducted an Independent Practice as Research project. It was in this module that I got to deploy all my previous learning to research my identity as a contemporary theatre practitioner. The allusions in Artist as Witness made me realise that adaptation was something that I was interested in. In this module, I learned that when creating, I start with something familiar and I moved to the unfamiliar.
Come Home (2019) was a lesbian fantasia of Emily Brontë’s novel Wuthering Heights (1847). It explored queerness, the uncanny and the notion of getting lost in your work/ obsession. In experiencing this process of getting lost and finding new aspects of yourself, I understood my I.P.A.R to be an autobiographical exploration. I also got the opportunity to see the work of lesbian theatre company Split Britches and to discuss my project with Lois Weaver. Split Britches became a key influence in this project as their work explored the autobiographical whilst also adapting classic texts; it was Weaver’s advice involving taking a story and making your own that made the piece an all female, queer adaptation.
In realising the beauty of the process and the polished work, I wanted to continue to adapt novels and draw out motifs that define us as humans. I want to tell stories that transcend time and reconnect people with both the world and themselves.
Photography by Becky Sheard (2019)