Platform: Young People and Mental Health
Some of these performances were staged in undisclosed and underground locations to encourage audiences to reflect on how the company operates in Belarus where their existence is completely illegal.
Today we publish the first of PLATFORM, a series looking at the issues raised in Belarus Free Theatre’s plays from the platform discussions that took place after each of the performances during #STAGINGAREVOLUTION.
PLATFORM: Young People and Mental Health which took place after a performance of 448 Psychosis.
Speakers: Dominic Dromgoole is artistic director of Shakespeare’s Globe and was a personal friend of Sarah Kane. Dr. Ann York is a Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist who works closely with Young Minds. The conversation will be facilitated by Sarah Brennan - CEO Young Minds.
Partner: Young Minds’ mission is to improve the emotional resilience and mental health of children and young people.
Watching 4:48 Psychosis, Sarah Kane’s play about the highs and lows of psychosis, is a gruelling experience in any ordinary theatre. But the combination of Belarus Free Theatre’s ecstatic embrace of Kane’s work and the choice of venue, underground in Clerkenwell’s House of Detention meant that the razor sharp knives of Sarah’s language and experience penetrated that much more deeply. The unusually intense and intimate aftershow discussion that followed was pitched emphatically as an inclusive conversation between the audience and the guest speakers.
For BFT, having time and space to discuss the taboos raised in their shows afterwards is as important as the play itself. Providing space to reflect on and rehearse saying the unsayable is an important step towards tackling the stigma and injustice that taboos nurture. This discussion shows how positively audience and experts alike responded to that invitation, everyone grappling to put into words difficult ideas and reflections on isolation, liberation, excessive love, fear and silence surrounding mental health.
At the end of the discussion, Zunar, the Malaysian cartoonist who was in London to raise awareness of his impending trial on 9 counts of sedition with a possible prison sentence of 43 years, talks to the audience about his work and trial that awaits him back home the following week.
See Behind the scenes: The making of Belarus Free Theatre’s 4.48 Psychosis directed by Georgie Weedon and edited Philippa Edwards
See a short clip from the night’s performance of 448 Psychosis here
