“Illness as Metaphor”
Project Arts Centre’s upstairs space
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Kick-starting Dead Centre’s most recent play, “Illness as Metaphor”, director Ben Kidd shares his personal connection to sickness and its influence in the conception of the play, which is an adaptation of Susan Sontag’s discourse on the power of language to reshape our encounters with diseases. As the play progresses, audiences witness not only Ness’ impersonation of Sontag, but Una Mullally adopting Kidd’s identity to express truths about his ailment that he finds hard to articulate.
This is an innovative theatrical creation, featuring six individuals coping with chronic sickness. It delves into the dichotomy of the neccessity and perplexity of metaphors, the reality of being sick, articulating this reality and conceptualising corporeality.
The play encapsulates Dead Centre’s signature elements. It delves profoundly into substantial concepts, delivering intellectual content with a significant dash of humour. It unabashedly employs a range of theatrical and technological techniques: from meta-theatrical occurrences within the play’s rehearsal space, to the utilisation of cameras, blue screens, and projections.
“Illness as Metaphor” isn’t just a thoughtful exploration of disease, truth in art, and Sontag. It powerfully encapsulates the lived experiences of chronic illness of its six extraordinary performers – Cabrini Cahill, Eamonn Doyle, James Ireland, Conor Lenehan, and Megan Robinson, all showcased on a minimalist yet flexible set designed by Ellen Kirk.
This poignant and intelligent theatrical artwork concludes in a Beckettian manner, having discovered a language to narrate often inexpressible narratives. It encapsulates what is quintessentially theatre at its finest.
Project Arts Centre will continue to host the play as part of the Dublin Fringe Festival till Saturday, September 14th.