StageLeft

Our current show in development, Auguste, I think... is being created in consultation with the New Zealand Alzheimer’s Association. 

The show has been inspired by David Shenk's book, The Forgetting: Alzheimer's: Portrait of an Epidemic, a ground breaking book published in 2001, which was reviewed by The Washington Post as a  a “Deeply affecting...a fascinating meditation on the scientific, political and cultural history of Alzheimer’s disease.”

The challenge is how do we create a show about dementia.  Or more specifically for us, where do people with dementia go and what happens to them?

The show will be in seven parts, constructed from anecdote, case study, verbatim, and the human response to the seven very specific stages of the most common dementia; Alzheimer’s disease. 

It will also draw on existent literature and myth associated with the loss of self, and memory.  We won’t be following the progressive decline of disease as a dramatic arc, but rather using this framework to open windows (as dementia does) into different ways of perceiving the world.  So the questions become instead, how do we progress through each of these seven parts or realms?  And, how can we make the audience walk in the shoes of someone within these worlds?

A visitation into the world of dementia need not be one of despair.  Rather, it may expose what it is to be human and archetypal journeying.  Present stories include the most enduring and greatest love stories.  In regression there is wonder.  Windows can be opened onto new aspects of selfhood and the rediscovery of the parts of our lives most meaningful to us.  Our aim is to create a show which reminds us to value what we have and how extraordinary we are.   

Auguste, I think... will include Stage Left’s signature amalgam of theatre/music/dance/video imagery.

It is being developed with the support of the NZ Festival and Auckland Arts Festival.