ANXIETY
Theatre Yes (with Outside the March)
Edmonton, November 24th - December 4th 2016
"A Vigil For You" - one of six performance installations on the theme of anxiety
director & writer · Ali Joy Richardson
designer · Amanda Wong
performer · Natasha Prasad
production assistant · Abigail Troppman
A large-scale, immersive performance experience, scored by renowned sound artist Gary James Joynes in collaboration with 6 of Canada’s most inventive small theatre companies. ANXIETY is a pan-Canadian collaboration resulting in an unforgettable found-space work, sculpted by Edmonton Playwright Cat Walsh and Theatre Yes.
"A Vigil For You" invites audiences into the cluttered office of a renowned geneticist who has recently died after being diagnosed with Alzheimer's. Her daughter welcomes the audience in and guides them through a series of rituals to memorialize her brilliant mother, including being asked to write something they "wish they could forget" and leave it behind in the office (resulting in a more than 1,500 memories being added to space over the course of the run).
Photos: Neil Silcox
"Outside the March's Ali Joy Richardson and Amanda Wong have created a piece that warmly invites its audience into a private world of grief and celebration. It is a rich world that is fully inhabited by the truthful and moving performance of Natasha Prasad."
- Nicole St. Martin (actor, Edmonton)
"...a moving sure-handed experience that explores the feelings that surround the loss of loved ones and the loss of self to dementia. Their short performance art piece quickly draws us into an intimate relationship with our grieving protagonist before we have a chance to raise our defences. During our time in the room, we are each cleverly captured in our moment of empathy and contemplation."
- Chris Little (Lo Hi Fi, Halifax)