WOMAN IN MIND

WRITTEN BY ALAN AYCKBOURN

Alan Ayckbourn's powerful tragi-comedy Woman In Mind is about a woman's mental breakdown. Susan is a middle-aged woman, trapped in a loveless marriage to a smug vicar, and estranged from her son. After a minor accident with a garden rake, her mind starts to conjure up the perfect fantasy family. But the line between imagination and reality soon becomes alarmingly blurred.

The play is unusual in that its events are entirely from Susan's subjective perspective. In our production Susan was shared by three actors, who each remained on stage and in play throughout. Sometimes there were simultaneous depictions of the same encounter from three different physical perspectives, or else at three different stages in its unfolding, helping to further express the character's fractured state of mind. This approach resulted in a kind of theatrical cubism and increased the play's emotional intensity. The set and sound design aimed to conjure up a sensual, middle-class English and feminine psychedelia. 

VENUE: Corbett Theatre, East 15 Acting School; MA Acting

Photographs by Andrew H Williams