In Addition by Orange Skies theatre is about a near-future Britain, mental health and toxic relationships. We spoke to Daisy from Orange Skies about the company, the show and the importance of the human connection that theatre taps into. What drove you to make In Addition? As a company we're all quite politically engaged, the recent changes in government of course stimulated quite a few conversations. We found a way in through the theme of sleep as we wanted to tell a story that was truthful to our own personal experiences. Each of us has some weird or interesting relationship with sleep, and we discovered that so do most people, so as a jumping off point that seemed like a great universal theme to start with. What are the main themes of the play and why are they important to you and your audience? Mental health, privatisation of the NHS, Toxic relationships, sleep and the information age. Some of these themes have been in the public consciousness a lot recently, so we felt if we were going to tackle and explore them we needed to do it in our own way. In Addition deals with these things in turn but not in terms of the big picture, we tried to break down how each one effects people in reality and tried to show something authentic. What a better place than the theatre to see something so human? There are so many ways to tell stories, tackle issues, explore ideas - why theatre? I think this is a very important question in the current world that we live in. Theatre has a phenomenal way of touching people from all different backgrounds, because it reduces every moment to a very human level. Whatever you see on stage is effecting these characters, not a group of people online. You are sitting in a room with complete strangers watching a story unravel in front of you. We think in a vastly digital world it helps to remind us that there is a human body behind every digital conversation. This is also one of the reasons that we decided to explore these themes through physical theatre on stage, to really get across to the audience that there are two bodies on stage, acting, moving, sweating right here, right now. You don't get that on YouTube. What was the last show you saw that you think everyone should see? Frankie Vah by Luke Wright. It's a politically driven verse play that tackles the political climate in the 80s through ranting poetry and punk music. It's a show that makes you feel reinvigorated by language, by revolutionary spirit, and music you feel in your guts. What else in the Edinburgh Fringe programme are you excited to see? We can't wait to see dressed by ThisEgg at Underbelly as they're a fellow East Anglian based company and their work is always AMAZING. We are also excited to see Tobacco Road by Incognito Theatre Company at Pleasance as we shared the bill with them at the LET Award and they were incredible. In Addition is on at Underbelly, Cowgate at 10.50am. Comments are closed.
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