My independent bachelor project.
Description extract from thesis:
Before I started writing Lessons in Resurrection, the main ideas for the narrative structure was retrieved from science and not from theatre theories. After visiting the Museum of London in February 2013 to see the exhibition called Doctors, Dissection and Resurrection-Men, I became fascinated by the possibility to transcend medical history and create a fictional scenario out of it. The exhibition dated from a key period which was the Anatomy Act of 1832, and where they advertised that you could see “skeletal remains recovered during excavations, included a dissected skull with multiple drill holes”[1]. My research on the medical history of dissection then led me to a movement of Russian scientists known as the Cosmists, and who had a very experimental approach to resurrection.
However, amongst all the anatomical Venuses and bones, what struck me was that anatomical lectures also were entertainment for the purpose of learning. This form of entertainment is also present to some extent in theatre, and thus the connection between the anatomical theatre and the theatre stage is linked in the sense that there is an audience and there is a stage. The anatomical theatre is shaped like almost like a miniature ancient Greek theatre, and the purpose is to get to see the action from a certain angle, from above. The idea of exploring the voyeuristic gaze of the anatomical theatre from the student’s perspective was a very prominent idea in the first stage of developing the script. The hypothesis of this scenic image is the blurred border between the status between the spectator and the actor: what if the spectator was looking down into the spectacle of his/her own life? The dissection of his/her body does not need to be a physical act, as it could be realised through the work of the actor. It is rather a symbolic act, a real image that when taken to an extreme, that also enables the understanding of the purpose of this form of theatre. It is not meant to compensate for reality, but it can cast a different light on it, and thus also intensify our perception. […]
In the lead roles:
Carla: Roseanna Allen
Leah: Dani Kolanis
David: Teddy Robson
Photos: Nastasia Alexandru
Sophie Barth portfolio 