THE CASE
The Case is based on a true story set in the First
World War. A damaged soldier returns home from the trenches. A widow moves
to London looking for work and falls into prostitution. After meeting the
girl, the soldier hires her and, overwhelmed by shell shock, throttles her
to death. Gripped by panic at the sudden realisation of what he has done,
the soldier chops up the woman’s body and leaves the dismembered corpse
in a suitcase at King’s Cross station.
In June 2009 we produced The Case as a piece of pop-up promenade theatre at an arthouse in Waterloo, an abandoned English Language School squatted by the Oubliette collective. With just three weeks, in a race against eviction, we produced, rehearsed and performed a sell-out run of ten performances, garnering favourable press reviews.
The script, by Alan Sharpington and Alan Atkins, was developed through improvisation and devising workshops based on source material from research carried out by the core company members. Installation and ‘atmosphere’ scenes were devised during the rehearsal process, being influenced by space, design and, of course, casting.
Donkeywork is the creation of Alan Sharpington and Rob Crouch and was begat to tell strange stories in unusual places. We are not 'site-specific' by definition but instead are open to all possibilities of presenting a performance in non-theatre space, with a strong emphasis on collaboration.
Our style of performance has many inspirations but is also unique in current theatre. Many of our contemporaries provide amazing environments, stunning design, strong narratives or well-crafted texts, but it is very seldom, if ever, that all these things are seen together. This has always proved a frustration for us as audience members - why can a play not absorb you into its physical and sensory environment AND have a gripping, linear narrative?
And this is precisely what Donkeywork has set out to do with 'The Case'.
Monday 22nd - Sat 27th June, Mon-Thurs at 7.30, Fri/Sat, 7.30and 9.00
Oubliette Arthouse,170 Westminster Bridge Road (corner of Lower Marsh)
'The Case' sprung from a desire to produce a meaty, site-specific horror story, with dark corners where anything could happen and a good dash of Grand Guignol to decorate the walls! Despite the bewildering range of great horror stories that we looked through, they all seemed too insubstantial or predictable from a theatrical perspective. It was then that we came across this story and the more we talked about it, the more we realised it had everything we wanted and so much more.
The modern resonances of the story are immensely relevant to what is going on today - mentally scarred returning soldiers living in a peaceful society, people forced into living beyond the law through economic necessity, a government unable or unwilling to help the social situation it has created. It is an epic story told on an intimate level. It is both universal and timeless whilst being very specific to its characters, social background and period. On top of this, of course, it also perfectly fits our original remit - a story with an insidious, creeping sense of terror that has a startling and brutal climax.