Forced Entertainment
Tomorrow’s Parties
© © Hugo Glendinning ©
© © Hugo Glendinning ©
© © Hugo Glendinning ©
Conceived and performed by, Forced Entertainment
Direction, Tim Etchells
With Jerry Killick and Cathy Naden
Stage design, Richard Lowdon
Lighting design, Francis Stevenson
A Forced Entertainment production, commissioned by Belluard Bollwerk International, with aid from Canton de Fribourg à la Culture
A coproduction by BIT Teatergarasjen (Bergen) ; International Summerfestival Kampnagel (Hamburg) ; Kaaitheater (Brussels) ; Künstlerhaus Mousonturm (Frankfurt) ; Theaterhaus Gessnerallee (Zurich) ; and Sheffield City Council
In association with Théâtre de la Ville-Paris ; and Festival d’Automne à Paris
With the support of Stanley Thomas Johnson Foundation
Onstage two performers summon up a multitude of hypothetical futures, and invite the audience to join them in reflection of a playful, poignant and sometimes terrifying nature. In keeping with Forced Entertainment’s works based on language, Tomorrow’s Parties explores the capacity of words to bring into existence what is not yet there.
On a stage framed by fairground lights, two performers on a podium test each other’s wits in a battle of predictions, ranging from the most fantastical to the most realistic. From within the confines of this minimalist physical space, their suppositions give rise to a dramatic space of great amplitude, in which to investigate our innermost and collective fantasies. Regurgitating, in a joyous way, different forms of discourse - political, economic, technological, environmental or otherwise - regarding our future, the various scenarios rub shoulders with each other. Some are strange and wondrous, whilst others sinister. Some are totally unfeasible, others are eminently plausible. What do these far-fetched fantasies, disturbing dystopias, and political nightmares tell us about who we are and our present? What are the limits of the world in which we live? How can words enable us to rebuild the world from scratch? Evolving from the comic from to the poignant, taking in numerous genres on the way, from the popular to the illustrious, the piece echoes with the infinite music of our dreams, hopes and fears.