The emerging Lancashire playwright Charles Abbott arrives at Salford’s The White Hotel, a venue which has already made a name for itself as a space that is keen to explore and encourage the experimental and avant garde performance.
The play will treat Manchester audiences to more of the original new theatre that the venue prides itself in showcasing. At times chilling and at others dripping with gallows humour, A Quiet Room is a must for audiences who like their drama to keep them guessing.
Abbott’s two act drama explores the ubiquitous perils of the bystander. The protagonists witness a brutal act and the resulting narrative focuses upon their unravelling.
Four individuals, portrayed by actors Nick Pearse, Paddy Stafford, Tommy Garside and Ethan Simpkin have been assigned an absurdtask, to remain in a room for two weeks observing anything and everything that unfolds on their watch. But how much of what they see is deliberate, even planned? What do the changes they monitor mean to the mysterious organisation for which they work, and even more, to themselves.
Abbott says,
“We were elated to be given the opportunity to bring A Quiet Room to The White Hotel. It is the perfect venue to stage a play like this, which we hope shifts focus in North West theatre back to the written text and naturalistic performances.
Rather than relying on stage craft to do the heavy lifting, our rallying-point is to use character and world building to explore ideas and hopefully mirror current experiences that many have been grappling with.
We are happy to break away from the current status quo in Manchester and we feel that the fact we are not staging A Quiet Room in a ‘traditional’ theatre environment only strengthens this. Our entire cast and crew have embraced this approach and we hope to introduce our audience to characters they will come to understand as they share their story and bring inventive theatre back to a place where all can enjoy it.”
The evening’s performance will be set in motion with wordplay, music and visual art.
This show is kindly supported by Arts Council England.
