THE grounds of St Helen’s School in Northwood were transformed for an indoor and outdoor promenade performance of Woyzeck, George Buchner’s ground-breaking, unfinished play.
Woyzeck is renowned for providing a director with the opportunity to do something original and exciting with the text. The short, fragmented scenes mean the text can be re-ordered, creating a fresh angle.
The story of a working class soldier driven to a terrible crime through oppression by his military seniors and high status doctors (who are medically experimenting on him in exchange for money) is still relevant today.
The drama department at St Helen’s decided to set the play in contemporary England with Woyzeck’s madness being the result of post-traumatic stress from a tour in a war zone and his strange medication.
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The school used a cast of nearly 40 actors from St Helen’s and Merchant Taylors’ School who guided the audience members on an indoor and outdoor journey using site-specific, promenade and immersive theatre.
One of the highlights was watching the adult audience roam freely in the funfair, hitting the high striker, trying to win a prize at hoopla or the coconut shy and enjoying the freshly-made popcorn.
The aim was to make the audience active participants in Woyzeck’s demise, which culminates in a thrilling and bloody bath scene.
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