The Common Thread: Escapism?
The previous blog shows the way we decided to tackle the issue of having so many different and unique people in the company, and being tasked to create one show. Try to find a common thread throughout all of our ideas and that is what we did.
The ideas of mental health, various illnesses, drag and many other things were thrown around in our discussions. It was when we remembered what had been said several times throughout our talks on theatre company and being on a drama course in general, that we started on the path that would eventually lead to Escapism.
Brainstorming Post-It Notes. (Nixon, 2017)
We had been told so much that, us as drama students and content makers, found ourselves in a goldmine of material, due to the massive shifts we were witnessing within politics and society. Brexit, Trump, Terrorism and countless other things are what dominate our screens and have placed us on the edge of a cliff, one that we have to be careful not to fall off of.
A personal mentality I have had from the start of University, let alone the start of this theatre company is that I never wanted to be cliché. I never wanted to (or want to) create content that is obvious, that is expected due to the current situation of the world and deals with issues that are commonly found in the world of the arts. It is a big question that hangs over the art world, Originality. We can never achieve true originality with our content, it is just impossible but I always wanted to not create something that was obvious.
So, we spoke about how we could create a show, that applies to everyone but doesn’t do the obvious and become a direct ‘attack’ on the big issues of today.
The image that inspired our journey. (Allan, 2015)
We began to speak about our personal experiences with this political and social situation we were living through, and once again discovered a vast difference in how we all viewed it. Some were strongly involved in it; some weren’t that fussed by it all and others just didn’t want to give a damn about it. But a theme that ran throughout all of us was a sense of being tired by it all and wanting to ‘escape’ from it.
Quickly, we realised that we had discovered that common thread we so desperately wanted for the piece. From that point, the meetings changed from brainstorming to looking more into this thing, that we all used but had no clue on. From this we quickly discovered a whole world of escapism and how it is a big debating topic when it comes to psychology and copying mechanisms. A key moment, especially when it came to the start of the script, was when we found the sugar and salt speech. ‘Think of escapism like sugar or salt. You can sprinkle it on top of your life to make it better, but too much will ruin the whole thing.’ (Allan, 2015) was the first time we felt like we understood escapism, and would be able to make an audience understand it too.
We had found an ideology that perfectly represented our company manifesto, something that wasn’t limited to a type of person but was available to anyone and is found throughout the world. Something that could reconnect all these fragments.
Works Cited
Nixon, E (2017) Fragment Theatre Company Gallery.
Allan, P (2015) How to Snap Back to Reality when “Escapism” Becomes “Avoidance”. Available from http://lifehacker.com/how-to-snap-back-to-reality-when-escapism-becomes-av-1723091630 (Accessed Feb 12th 2017)