At the bottom of this page I have linked my Catalogue Document for this show, entitled Love and Kisses. The document is a great way to look at what the show consisted of, some photos to help you visually understand it, and my response to it at the time. However, it is now over a year since that show and I wanted to write something here to talk about my current response. This piece of writing is for whoever is currently reading it but it’s also for me to think back to Truth Be Truth to Th’End of Reck’ning and figure out how it sits in my memory.

This show was an incredible achievement for all involved. After a hard rehearsal period, when the curtain call arrived we had something that I can safely say I am very proud to have been a part of. In preparation for the show, as well as a chance to see something that I think everyone needs to in their life, we went to Auschwitz. The module Artist As Witness aimed to teach us about an artist’s ability to witness things and create, based upon what we had witnessed. For us that was Auschwitz and Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure. Almost instantly we knew we wanted to link Measure for Measure with the Me Too movement, due to the heavy themes of the patriarchy. On top of that we also added the idea of misfits, this is was mainly due to cast being a group of misfits. What crystallised was a very strange show that talked about many important issues in a way that never felt like it was trying too much.

 

 

A very interesting, exhausting, and insane way of performing was given to us for this show – and I am utterly obsessed with it now. We needed a way to take the show over the edge and add an element that would make the audience really care about us as performers. Due to the elements we were working with we found that we needed to look physically drained on stage, representing everything that we were trying to convey in our show. Events in history have drained people to the point of death. At the beginning of every performance we did warm up exercises for hours on end, physically making us too tired to do anything else but perform. It was exhilarating. For the first time in my performing life I was focused solely on the performance, because that was all I had the energy to do.

This show, at its core, talked about the horrific ordeal that many people went through in Auschwitz. But there is no way to fully convey that to someone who wasn’t there. And as artists we were never showing our audience Auschwitz, we were showing them a performance about Auschwitz. This is what Artist as Witness taught us. That artists are here to witness things, to try their best to understand and convey these things to their audience. But it will never be the same as the originally event or thing, it will only be an artist representation.

 

 

Love and Kisses – Catalogue Document for Truth Be Truth to Th’End of Reck’ning