A Matter of Love, devised (Mind Over Matter Theatre Collective)
Can science really explain what we mean when we talk of love? A Matter of Love follows the story of two people who allow us to observe and to share in their narrative. We see them meet, their hearts race and palms sweat; get excited, find common ground, find brilliance in passion and stumble over unrealised emotions.
Process
A Matter of Love has been devised by the company and inspired by concepts in philosophy and psychology. It's seen a scratch performance at the Etcetera Theatre in January 2016 but the show is still evolving.
Research
See my Medium page for articles on a rage of psychological, scientific and philosophical discussions of love and partnership. My most recent work looks at why couples are so important in society.
Development
The show should undergo some workshopping in 2017 and I will write up the process as and when they occur.
Archive -- Etcetera Theatre, Jan 2016
Research and development for our first work-in-progress show.
Research
We started with a very blank slate. We knew we wanted to look at love and partnership, and that our MO was science-inspired art. Thanks to collaborations academics in philosophy and history at the University of York we built a baseline of thought experiments and psychology to start from. Branching off from talks at our launch event I looked into classical definitions of love and the concept of panpsychism.
Over the next weeks I completed a number of presentations for the team on broad concepts related to love and the Mick Gordon play that inspired our devising. This ranged from an analysis of Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus to a glossary of forms of communication from across time and cultures.
All of this created a space to decide what we wished to focus on in the piece. We decided that we wanted to paint the landscape for debate--present scientific explanations of love, showcase experience and emotion--but leave inherent questions open for the audiences to answer. The most wonderful thing about our debut show, On Ego, was that wrestles with difficult issues of mental health and identity, but it does not conclude with a "correct answer". That's something we wanted to emulate in A Matter of Love.
Process
Taking what I and the team had learned and bringing it into the workshopping space was essential, and a really satisfying part of the process. We hashed through the short piece to make sure it was artistically consistent and that we stuck to the company's ethos. This involved injecting concepts that had arisen in research and discussions, either into the actor's characterisation or directly into the lines.
Over one intensive evening I sat in with the actors and artistic director Lauren Moakes to observe the fine-tuning and keep the final product brimming with the energy and ideas that make the company special.