“I think of a child’s mind as a blank book” – Walt Disney.

Crossing the savage interior landscape of the human mind, two improbable [anti]heroes pursue visions in the form of nightmares of freedom through a series of episodes of intense sensuality and phantasmagorical violence.

Psychodrama is a kind of pop cultural exorcism, a runaway train that travels through the skull of the spectator in a charred synapsis, a dreamed, sticky and slippery show, about the brutality of cartoons and the corrosive power of stories. It asks the questions, Whose are all those voices inside your head? How did they get there? And if you could silence them, would you?

Psychodrama is the first collaborative piece created and interpreted by the Canadian writer, interpreter and musician Christopher Brett Bailey and the experimental theatrical company Sleepwalk Collective.

Sleepwalk Collective

An award-winning live art and experimental theatre company that since 2006 has been working in Spain and the UK, creating original pieces for theatres and unconventional spaces that emerge from the fascination they feel with popular culture, the human condition and new technologies. Its works combine reflexive and poetic pieces with a carefully worked aesthetic, and are characterised by being wrapped in a dense and hypnotic sound and light design.

Sleepwalk Collective are Iara Solana Arana and Sammy Metcalfe. Together they have created a dozen spectacles for the theatre, a series of intimate pieces in interactive format and a large number of experimental actions and theatrical pieces, some of them site-specific, for alternative spaces and museums that have been programmed on four continents and more than 20 countries, notably the Barbican in London, the MESS Festival in Sarajevo and the Sydney Festival in Australia, the Havana Theatre Festival and the Progress Festival in Toronto. Their texts were published by Oberon Books, Routledge and Salamander Street.

Christopher Brett Bailey (Canada, 1987)

He is a writer, musician, theatrical creator and interpreter based in London. His debut This is how we die (2014) was praised by the critics and received the Arches Brick Award and Off West End Award (in the category of productions that challenge traditional definitions).

Other works include the musical theatre pieces Kissing the shotgun goodnight (2016) and Rated x (2018), as well as his collection of stories Spoken word Suicide notes (2018). He is a frequent collaborator with Made In China, Andy Field, Mamoru Iriguchi, Glen Neath & Hannah Ringham, Nigel & Louise, and the great Ken Campbell.

As a musician, he forms half of the environmental duo Moon ate the Dark and leader of the group This machine won’ t kill fascists but it might get you laid. He is a graduate of the East 15s Contemporary Theatre course, of which is currently a creative writing tutor. After receiving a cum laude from Rock School he completed a Master in Writer’s Block at Goldsmith’s College, University of London.

TICKETS

 

Data sheet

Duration: 70’
Experimental theatre In English with Spanish subtitles

Data sheet
Original piece: Sleepwalk Collective and Christopher Brett Bailey
Interpreters: Iara Solano Arana and Christopher Brett Bailey
Stage design: Iara Solano
Original music and sound design: Christopher Brett Bailey and Sammy Metcalfe
Voiceover: Nhung Dand
Lighting: Sammy Metcalfe
Technical translation team: Iara Solano Arana Projections: Iara Solano Arana
Hairdressers: Katie Du’ Mont
Costumes: Paola de Diego
Production in Spain: Iara Solano Arana Production in the UK: Beckie Darlington A co-production with the Centro Conde Duque, Theatre in the Mill, Cambridge Junction and Battersea Arts Centre.
With the support of the Arts Council England and HOME Manchester.

Piece produced at the Centro Conde Duque
Psychodrama S23May, 8.30pm Cidade da Cultura. Museo Centrum Gaiás Sala 1