Cast

Synopsis

“When a man has lost all happiness, he’s not alive. Call him a breathing corpse.”

Amy’s found another body in a hotel bedroom. There’s a funny smell coming from one of Jim’s storage units. And Kate’s losing it after spending all day with the police. There’s no going back after what they’ve seen. This black comedy opens with a hotel chambermaid’s discovery of a dead body; and, as the play tracks back in time, each scene explains its predecessor.

As we meet the manager of a self-storage facility and his solitary wife, a sadistic businesswoman and her dog-loving toyboy and finally an odd hotel guest, the connections all become apparent.

Laura Wade’s ingeniously constructed play addresses tragic, unsettling, and powerful themes. The script is sharp, witty, and darkly tongue-in-cheek, closing with an unusual and unsettling twist.

Directors Notes

“When a man has lost all happiness, he’s not alive. Call him a breathing corpse.” Sophocles

Breathing Corpses introduces us to an array of fascinating characters whose stories interconnect, and whose lives are linked by a debilitating encounter with death. What at first appears to be unconnected is in fact deeply interwoven. Some of the characters discover bodies and are haunted by it; some of them become the bodies themselves and in other cases might be responsible for a body or two! The stories seem separate, but they are not.

All the people we meet in this dark play exist in a vacuum of emptiness and unhappiness and are caught in routine and habit; their fear and limited means shackle their ability to break out of an unending and  damaging cycle. Indeed, one of the characters references Dante’s circles of hell and there is a diabolical circularity to this play. It cleverly tells each story out of chronological sequence, so time goes backwards and forwards, seemingly collapsing altogether in the fifth and final vignette. Some of Dante’s circles of hell (such as gluttony, wrath, violence, treachery) run through the scenes and we’ve introduced colour themes to reinforce these circles of hell.

When I read this play, I was hooked immediately by how it addresses tragic and disturbing themes, but with a sharp, witty and darkly tongue-in-cheek script. I was drawn in by the sense of hugely diverse types of people becoming tied together in a chain. Throw in cause and effect, consequences of actions, a mind-bending parallel or alternate world, and it has at times felt like working on a murderous jigsaw puzzle, at others more like a black comedy. There’s humour hidden amongst the corpses!

With such an experienced and dedicated cast on board, it’s been a joy working on this production. They’ve embraced the ideas and vision of the creative team, who have worked so hard to bring this intriguing and unusual play to life. I hope that you, our audiences, find much to consider and talk about after watching this elusive tale.

Thank you for your support.