Forced Entertainment
And On The Thousandth Night...
© Forced Entertainment © Hugo Glendinning ©
© Forced Entertainment © Hugo Glendinning ©
© Forced Entertainment © Hugo Glendinning ©
Conceived and performed by, Forced Entertainment
Director, Tim Etchells
With Forced Entertainment and guests
Text, Tim Etchells, Forced Entertainment
Stage design and lighting, Richard Lowdon
A production by Forced Entertainment
Commissioned by Festival Ayloul Beirut
In association with Théâtre de la Ville-Paris ; Festival d’Automne à Paris
A story is a told, improvised live by a series of characters in king and queen costumes. The story constantly veers from one register or genre to another – from the traditional tale to bar chat, from the bad joke to a ghost story, and from the children’s book to the philosophical fable…
Borrowing its title and part of its inspiration from One Thousand And One Nights, An On The Thousandth Night… explores the living relationship which comes to life onstage between a story, its audience and the storytellers. The onstage rule is as simple as it its cunning: each king or queen can interrupt at any given time the storytelling of another, thereby starting a new story or continuing it, in the manner of a cadaver exquis. Amidst the competition, untimely interruptions and abandoned stories left high-and-dry in narrative hiatus, the storytellers captivate our attention and surprise us, collectively bringing into being a never-ending story. As the performers evolve between tiredness and hysteria, vulgarity and the absurd, audiences are free to come and go as they please. And On The Thousandth Night… offers a unique, surprising, and fascinating theatrical experience, behind the minimalist foundations of which are hidden a multitude of possibilities.
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