As one of the UK’s leading theatre groups, Theatre Re returns to Edinburgh Fringe bringing their explosive and joyous five-star sell-out international hit show. 55-year-old Tom is living with early-onset dementia; as he gets ready for his birthday party, he is swept away by his memories. From first kisses to wedding days, the production explores the fragility of memory and the importance of the moments that define us.
Thank you for chatting with A Young(ish) Perspective! Introduce us to who you are and what your doing at the Edinburgh Fringe this year?
Hello everyone! My name is Guillaume Pigé. I am originally from France, and I have been living in the UK for the past 18 years. I am the Founder and Artistic Director of Theatre Re – an artist-led theatre company bringing original live music with striking visual performance to create world class, deeply moving non-verbal productions about universal human challenges and the fragility of life.
At the Fringe this year we will be bringing our award winning five start international hit ‘The Nature of of Forgetting’.
A Youngish Perspective platforms accessible arts and champions the huge scope of different perspectives – can you tell us about the show you’re taking to Edinburgh Festival Fringe as if you’re flyering to both a young first-time-Fringe goer and a festival veteran returning every year?
The Nature of Forgetting is a powerful, joyous and life-affirming exploration of what is left when memory is gone.
Our main character is Tom; a middle aged father living with early onset dementia. He is cared for by his daughter Sophie. We present him on the day of his 55th birthday. As he struggles to get dressed for his party, the feel of his clothes sparks him into life and past memories come flooding back.
Given that this show was developed in combination with Alzheimer’s Society and Neuroscience Professor Kate Jeffery, how were you able to balance realism and science with the spectacle of the stage?
In our collaboration with Professor Kate Jeffery, we focused on the technicalities of what happens in the brain when we forget. Thanks to Kate, we understood that when we remember we visually construct and re-construct memories, as if pulling on an imaginary thread where all memories are attached. This discovery led us to to developing a specific non-naturalistic but relatable performance’s language.
Portraying forgetting became about de-constructing or/and mis-constructing memories, as well as getting all the memory threads interfering with each other, and sometimes even breaking – making it impossible to retrieve a whole sequence of event. These discoveries lended themselves particularly well to our medium, physical and visual theatre, with objects and characters appearing in the wrong place at the wrong time. This was extended to the use of voice, sounds, music and lights all contributing to making visible the nature of forgetting.
The journey of Tom and the people around him – his daughter Sophie, his mother and his best friend Mike – was also informed by personal experiences and by interviews conducted with people living with dementia and their carers.
Our aim was not to collect personal stories but to explore the special bond that exists between music and memory. Music seems to be using parts of our brain designed for purposes other than memory, therefore people living with dementia keep responding to music and that is where we understand that memories do not disappear, it is just that they become unaccessible. This was important for us because it means that it’s all still there.
In The Nature of Forgetting there is an idea that when all is forgotten something is left behind, what inspired this exact concept?
We tend to start each new project with a question. Something that we don’t have the answer to. The Nature of Forgetting started with: what is eternal? The way we try to respond is very open and encompasses a wide range techniques, art forms and theatre traditions. The whole process is always guided by a sense of play and the joy we find in it. After some weeks of rehearsals the question became: what is left when memory is gone? I don’t think we have found the answer, and that’s probably why we made a show about it.
Who would your surprise dream audience member be?
We would love for Sarah Jessica Parker to come back!
Pleasance Courtyard (Grand) from 9th – 23rd August at 13:15. Tickets are available here.