No Obvious Trauma
No Obvious Trauma will tour to Scotland in October-November 2008. See our calendar page for details.
Trains shriek through the night as the memory of a love affair floats through the walls of an isolated institution. A mysterious patient questions her identity and doctors track the fragile line between madness and desire.
In an isolated psychiatric institution, Dr. Weaver is haunted by the memory of a lost love affair. It is 1932, and a new patient arrives with little more than a name tag and a tattered ribbon. Unable to communicate anything of her past, she is assigned to Weaver's colleague Dr. Crawley. But as memories return, identity is mistaken, emotions are kindled and treatment undermined.
"Breathtakingly beautiful... every single second a visual feast" - Three Weeks Brighton
Although dealing with serious subject matter, drawing on Freud's work on hysteria and Charcot's catalogue of hysteric imagery, No Obvious Trauma is a gripping and highly entertaining story told with a vibrant combination of visual storytelling, energetic choreography, atmospheric shadows, character and ensemble acting, object animation and puppetry.
"dazzling physical theatre... extraordinarily imaginative" - The Scotsman
No Obvious Trauma appeared at the Pleasance in the Edinburgh Fringe 2006, where it was nominated for a Total Theatre Award. It transferred to the Croydon Warehouse straight after Edinburgh, and will be touring the UK in autumn 2007.
"this is a fantastic production, which manages to be entertaining, provocative and haunting" - British Theatre Guide
Written and devised by the company
Performed by Darren East, Zoë Hunter & Gilbert Taylor
Directed by Clare Dunn
Lighting Design by Henry Dawn
Technical Requirements: minimum stage space 6m x 5.5 x 3m (must be smooth and level), in any space that can be configured to approximate and end-on stage with a blackout. The lighting plan is supplied on request, requires lighting rig, operating desk and minimum 14 lamps. Sound requirements: mixer with two cd players or equivalent. Runs approximately 70 minutes.
