Eyes down

In the education resource pack which accompanies its latest show Falling, Theatre Alibi's (TA) associate writer Daniel Jamieson makes the fascinating assertion that ‘fiction belongs to reality.’

‘Fiction isn't some sort of theme park where things happen that don't relate to reality,’ he writes. ‘It's a gift we have to perceive the richness of real experience.’

The ethos that Jamieson describes here is fundamental to the work TA has been making for over three decades. The company regards the theatre as an imaginative playground where a peculiar mix of live music, movement, and language affords us a vivid prism through which to see our lives. TA embodies a belief that storytelling makes us human, that it allows us to rehearse responses to the challenges life might throw at us, and to reflect on the choices we have already made. We play stories out to each other to practise, to learn, and to enjoy ourselves. Jamieson believes that it is no accident that the stories we tell in the theatre are called plays – we hope that the act of transformation we witness might ‘refresh the playfulness’ in all of our lives.