I am sure we have all had instances at the train station where the train is delayed, or we miss the connection or the platform is changed. What if we thought of this manic confusion as an individuals brain whom which has alzheimers. There confusion of memories becomes the confusion of platforms and which trains are coming in at what time. I am going to use this idea within my setting of my performance.
At the start of the performance I wish to be dressed in black, almost a blank canvas. After an opening statement to my audience in which I hope will question their reasoning’s of always knowing where they are going. I will then with the change of my voice read out the next train coming, in conductor style. With this I will then get onto my train (aka. suitcase) and ride my suitcase to the next destination. As I have decided to use a train station to take myself and my audience to different places my setting will use most of the space. In order to help the audience see this I will have 4 main posts in which the lighting will be different and will show a different memory at those places. I will also tape a ‘track’ to the floor in which I will follow on my suitcase helping with the idea of me being on a train.
I have found a train station to be a perfect setting and destination in itself as it is somewhere people go to leave, people come back, they visit for periods of time. There are happy appearances and final farewell’s. Friends meet, laughter, music and coffee shops are heard, but yet that eerie silence of the next train to come echoes throughout the station. This to me shows the isolation of one with Alzheimer’s and the mind that is being torn apart. Their memories a bit like within a station become flashing images of the past, some memories stay for longer than others, some are happy and some are sad. No matter what is remembered and what happens around them, there is this loneliness silence which echoes around their mind for the lost memories which never seem to relive themselves.