Its difficult to find a piece of work that you can honestly say you admire, you feel they manage to tell a story of an event or situation which they have not actually suffered through yet are able to catch the heart wrenching agony behind it. A piece of theatre I have been looking into is ‘An Evening With Dementia’ by Trevor Smith. He places himself centre stage sitting on a chair wrapped in a blanket with his pyjamas on, creating an illusion of being bored and not knowing what to do, he then begins to talk and uses both humour and emotional expanse to grab the audiences attention.
Dementia and Alzheimer’s are illnesses which occur too often, yet are still not as well known as they should be. Individually I feel everyone should have an understanding of dementia and Alzheimer’s for if you found someone in the street or encounter someone with the illness it means you would at least know how to help. Therefore this piece of theatre really showed the reality behind dementia, that you should not feel sorry for them as they are still there, sometimes they just need reminding of some things bit they still love, they still care, and they still have some memories even if you do not believe it.
After finding out Trevor actually did not read into this project he simply used his own experiences and what he already knew I feel slightly half hearted ever so slightly as I found that this piece really touched the comical side of dementia but also how the person with dementia must feel everyday. I understand within this industry there is a need to make money on projects and performances, but is that what should really be behind the initial idea? Doesn’t that ruin the whole idea of the performance and what the audience members are supposed to get from it or at least feel about what they are being shown? It is important to make money of course, but the piece of theatre and the situations that occur or the understanding of an incident should be able to speak for itself, that is within the art of theatre, not everyone will like it but audience members should walk away with questions or at least wanting to know more.
At least I know now I would like to create an inspirational piece which gives the audience members an understanding of the illness itself or at least a side of it that many people may not know about or simply overlook. I will create this for audience members to gain knowledge about the illness and not with the idea of earning money from it, but rather to hope that my audience would like to find out more and find it helpful.