Southwark Playhouse presentsHow to Disappear Completely
and Never Be Found
by Fin Kennedy
October 8th 2008 - November 1st 2008
Show starts: 7.30pm (3pm Saturday matinees)
Running time: 2 hours, 20 mins (including interval)
“What makes you who you are? A name? An address? A random collection of experiences, a few memories? You are who you can prove you are. You are what people think and that’s the easiest thing in the world to change.”
When a young executive reaches breaking point and decides to disappear, he pays a visit to a master of the craft in a seafront fortune teller in Southend.
Haunted by visitations from a pathologist who swears he is already lying flat out on her slab, he begins to re-live the nightmarish final hours that see his body retrieved from the Thames, stripped of everything that made him who he was.
With echoes of Camus and Kafka, this extraordinary new play follows one man’s desperate attempts to buck the system, and asks what really makes us who we are in the 21st century.
How to Disappear Completely and Never Be Found won the 38th Arts Council John Whiting Award for New Theatre Writing and the Peter Brook Empty Space award 2007.
Post Show Talk - Thursday, 23rd October
"An unsettling, dangerous play that... makes you wonder how much other gold dust falls between the gaps of British theatre."
The Guardian
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Creative Team
Directed by |
- Ellie Jones |
Designed by |
- Ellen Cairns |
Lighting Designer |
- Tim Mascall |
Sound Designer |
- Nicholas Briggs |
Movement |
- Vik Sivalingam |
Cast
Mike, Tube Man, Robert |
- Richard Bremmer |
Sophie |
- Katrina Cooke |
Doctor, Ellie, Nurse |
- Becci Gemmell |
Eric, Danny, Priest |
- Steve Hansell |
Charlie/Adam |
- Luke Norris |
Voice of the shipping forecast |
- Sam West |
Supported by
Reviews
A brilliant metaphysical tragedy about the search for happiness ... ingenious, Lorca-like ... an unsettling dangerous play ... makes you wonder how much other gold dust falls between the gaps of British theatre.
The Guardian
An intriguing, disquieting piece of work. It unfolds in a series of scenes handled with scalpel-like precision. The dialogue is assured, often very funny, occasionally poignant. Kennedy's is a voice of which we'll be hearing a lot more.
The Independent
Before it was even produced the play won the John Whiting Award for New Writing, and both its deft characterisation and the assault on the subject of identity show it a worthy winner. The work remains fascinating from moment to moment.
The Times
Just occasionally you find a piece of new writing that restores your confidence in the future of theatre ... an exciting, exhilarating, extremely funny and deeply distressing parable of contemporary consumerism. This is as good as theatre gets.
The Stage