The Rehearsal

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Audience and performers collaborate over a few beers on the rehearsal of a play, which becomes an attempt to deal with the inevitability of death. Pigeon Theatre present The Rehearsal (A Trilogy) - Performed live in the bar! The Rehearsal (A Trilogy) by Pigeon Theatre at PANDA-monium 2007. Photo by Stacey Potter. This is a unique show offering a contemplation on creativity and the inevitability of mortality through three versions of the same performance, performed by differently aged and gendered couples on different nights. In a bar at the end of a long night's drinking two performers collaborate with their audience in the planning and rehearsal of a theatrical performance event. This is a rehearsal of a ‘new’ show but also a rehearsal of, and attempt to come to terms with, the inevitability of the death of ourselves and our loved ones. The Rehearsal (A Trilogy) by Pigeon Theatre at PANDA-monium 2007. Photo by Stacey Potter. “There’s something about imagining it that makes the reality of it not so bad, that means I’ll be able to cope with it when it happens, but there’s also the fear that if I think hard and strong enough about it, I could bring about the potential deaths of my loved ones, and I don’t quite know what to do with that, it’s a strange one actually…” This is a unique performance, with three versions of the show standing as a trilogy, each performed by a different couple, two twenty-something women, two fifty-something men, and a seventy-something year old couple. Each show is related to the others around a common theme and structure, but each show comprises a radically different reflection on, and rehearsal of, the processes and potentialities of dying. Pigeon Theatre are a Manchester based physical performance company. Using their unique, distinctive and bizarre physical performance style, this is contemporary site-specific theatre that lays bare the methods and strategies of creativity and provides an insightful interrogation of time, death, memory and imagination. Fuelled by alcohol this is an erotic, exhilarating, exhausting and excessively intimate show in a real bar. "a pocket masterpiece" The Stage “this is brilliantly done: the show both sticks closely to the script and tears it apart. The movement is fast, skilled and slightly mad…This show takes audience involvement to a new level with a powerful cabaret, a breathless reminder of mortality” ThreeWeeks

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