UNBELOOVABLE! Latest ADC Show Set in Ladies’ Toilets
To pee, or not to pee? Excrement is building ahead of the latest ADC pooduction, Troubled Sleep.
Troubled Sleep is not just another bog-standard Cambridge show.
Shirking the familiar settings of ‘intimate’ Corpus or the traditional ADC stage, director Isolde Penwarden has decided to set Troubled Sleep in the ADC toilets.
This bold move follows in the footsteps of other site-specific productions, such as last term’s hugely successful Paradise Project, in which characters emerge from the audience as the play progresses.
Penwarden told Cambridge News that this innovative location has its benefits, “immersing the audience in the same unwelcoming space as the characters.”
She added that “experiencing the space from the sisters’ perspective not only removes the fourth wall, but brings in new factors, like smell.”
Eight audience members at a time will jostle for space in the ladies’ for this 30-minute play about the contrasting lives of two sisters, both of whom have moved to Ireland to escape their violent stepfather. All in the name of fart, we say.
Victoria Fell, who plays one of the two sisters, is ‘flush’ with excitement for the show. Speaking to The Tab, the second year lawyer from Downing said: “I feel very lucky to be involved in such an interesting and exciting piece of site-specific theatre. I hope the audiences, who will be immersed in the performance, will enjoy it too!”
The too-close-for-comfort space of the four cubicles is the perfect backdrop to the loo’d familial conflict which you can’t quite wash your hands of.
While it may not be strictly orthodox, Tab Theatre Editor Leyla Hamid was full of praise for the concept: “I think it’s a great, fresh idea that looks set to shake things up and close the distance between actress and audience – why not?!”
Other students, however, were not so convinced. One unimpressed Fresher remarked, “A play in the toilets? Are you taking the piss?”
Whatever you think of the idea, the unique venue certainly promises to put bums on seats and draw significant interest from Cambridge theatregoers.