Hello everyone, I hope you are all well as this rather snowy March draws to
a close. I have to say that someone must have been looking down on me as
despite all the snow and bad weather I have managed to make every theatre trip
I had planned...thank you whoever you are.
Now I normally find it quite easy to pick which musical will be Musical of
the Month, however, with the amount of shows I've seen this month I've found it
rather hard to focus on one in particular...oh well that's an outright lie but
as much as some people, you know who you are, wouldn't care if I wrote review
after review about Priscilla I do know that that's not what everyone wants to
read. So what have I picked...well I've kind of cheated a little, well actually
a lot, as I haven't actually seen this and it's not actually a
musical...however, after reading it I desperately want to draw it to your
attention.
As you'll know from my little bio at the right side of this blog I'm a 2nd
year drama student...well for a second semester this year we're studying contemporary
theatre, which means reading lots and lots of plays that have been written by
playwrights who are still alive. To me the majority of these plays are ok but
never come close to my beloved musicals...well except for the one I am going to
tell you about today.
The play in question is Adult Child/Dead Child by Claire Dowie. Now as I've
said, I've never actually seen this play but from reading to 12 pages of script
(yes it's only 12 pages long) the play really touched something inside me.
Adult Child/Dead Child is basically one really long monologue from a
non-gendered character who has schizophrenia. The play looks at its character's
life and what led to the condition manifesting and what he/she has done to
control it.
Although the character in the play specifically has schizophrenia, I think
what touched me about this play was that it could really be referring to
anyone. Everyone in the world has some sort of problem; maybe not as big as
your parents locking you in a cupboard as the character's parents do (although
for some this is a reality) but everyone has a problem of some sort.
Additionally, the character in the play finally started managing to cope
when two things happened. 1. He/she found someone who listened to them, really
listened, and didn't think that what he/she was going on about was silly or
childish...a person who just sat there, listened and understood what this
problem meant to the character and that it wouldn't just go away, instead that
the character could be taught to cope through friendship. And 2. He/she found
something that made him/her happy.
To me these two things are what the majority of people, not just the
character with schizophrenia, need in life to survive. We all need at least one
person who will listen to our problems and not judge us (and hopefully we repay
them by doing the same for them) because keeping it bottled up can drive us
mad, as we see from the character in the play. We, also, need to find the one
thing that can make us happy in life; this may be a dog (like the character in
the play), playing football, cooking, or, most probably for the majority of you
reading this blog, going to see your favourite theatre show (bet you can't
guess what mine is? :p).
So I urge all of you to go and find a copy of this play and read it or, if you’re
lucky enough for it to be on in your area, go and watch it. It certainly
inspired me, so much so that, with my friend from uni's direction, I hope to
put on a performance of it.
I'd love to hear your comments on what you thought of this blog and,
hopefully, what you thought of the play. Please feel free to comment below or
tweet me at @GreenGirlsRox (although apparently according to the new Twitter
there's something about either I need to follow you or you me for me to see
your comment...I'm not sure so any info on this would, also, be useful!).
Hope you all have a wonderful Easter and a great April.
Love you lots
Love
Kat
Xx
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