Siamese Scream Presents: The Sanitorium

description

"We all go a little mad sometimes.... haven't you?" (Norman Bates)

Siamese Scream productions are a brand new theatre and cabaret productions company borne from a shared love of theatre, vaudeville, burlesque and the macabre....

Together, we have created the unsettling and strange world of The Sanitorium.... a visit to a victorian madhouse which will play on how close laughter and fear sit in all of us....

Our show is a cross-disciplinary piece of theatre featuring actors, modern vaudeville, burlesque, performance art, drag, ariel and dance performers. Cabaret and vaudeville are enjoying a large scale resurgence internationally and Dublin has some of Europe’s finest, most exciting and challenging cabaret performers. Our show casts the cream of the Dublin cabaret, queer, variety and performance art crop – and we've built a narrative around their performances, which shifts from the often 'mixed bag' variety environment in which we usually see these artists perform. Influenced by Brecht’s Epic theatre, we break the fourth wall and include the audience in the play. The traditional Emcee is replaced with a principal actor who “guides” the audience through the show, and deeper into the weird world of the Sanitorium.

The story is a black comedy, where we have collaborated with each artist to create a character to embody who they as a performer feel they would become within the walls of the Sanitorium. Each act is a carefully constructed depiction of the inner world of the performer and will give us a unique insight to their psyche. The audience are our visitors, going from room to room seeing different inmates and meeting the characters (in each “room” they are brought to houses a different performer who we meet, hear their story, their “case notes” and then see perform). As our play evolves, there are a number of unsettling transitions – we are constantly guessing – and it is never clear if in fact we are really ever witnessing the truth....

This invitation is a once in a lifetime opportunity to bear witness to these creatures inside the invisible world of the madhouse, to hear the Alienist explain their diagnoses, to see their strange conditions play out before your very eyes.... and to examine the very nature of madness itself.

Lucy Rhinehart & Lilly DeValle as The Twins
And Shane O'Connor as The Alienist

Written, produced and directed by us (thats Lucy Rhinehart and Lilly DeValle!)
Starring:
Marnie Scarlet (UK) ,
Big Chief Random Chaos
Post Modern Sleeze
Azaria Starfire
Phil T. Gorgeous
Bunny
Tom Riddle and Tristen Twist
Jonas Wal
Bella A GoGo
Smilin' Kanker

Animated digital art set design and set by Nic Cassidy

"Alice in Wonderland meets The Shining"

"A beastly mix of theatre, burlesque, sideshow and cabaret... dressed in black"

All performers are working on a profit share basis.  The funds we raise here will cover the creative costs - our costume, set design, prop production, lighting design, studio time for creating original music and voice-overs, and to cover our rehearsal space. 

WHEN: 19th & 20th October 2012
WHERE: The Boys School, Smock Alley Theatre.