A performance investigation of domestic violence and therapy
“[In therapy environments with domestic abusers, experience] has led us […] to a position which is a difficult one for a psychotherapist – put simply it is that ‘you can never trust an abuser’. This is not to say that they are insincere (although they often are) but that the denial is simply too strong and insidious to assume that you are getting the truth.”
Adam Edward Jukes, Men Who Batter Women (1999), page x
This was the first stage developmental for This Kind of Ruckus. It examined the frightening intersections of the private home and the criminal justice system. Taking as source material transcripts of interviews with domestic violence offenders and their victims, Hurt and damage relocates version 1.0’s documentary performance practice from the public realm of politics into the wreckage of domestic relationships and the institutional practices that attempt to make sense of this wreckage. In the process version 1.0 will examine through performance both the nature of the hurt inflicted and the attempts to repair the damage.
Who are the perpetrators of this violence, and who are their victims? Who are their counsellors and therapists, and what are the agendas and strategies that animate this process? What are the politics of the personal in these intimate and abusive relationships, and what are the politics of representation with regards to such relationships? And finally, what are the representational limits of performance in re-presenting documentary material such as this? What is the place of theatre in the face of this hurt and damage? During this creative development, version 1.0 will address these questions in relation to the interview transcripts, laying the groundwork for further development of the work to a fully staged production, envisaged for early 2009.
Creative development residency: April 21- May 16, Performance Space @ Carriage Works
Artists:
Sean Bacon, Paul Dwyer, Stephen Klinder, Jane Phegan, Deborah Pollard, Christopher Ryan, Yana Taylor, Kym Vercoe, and David Williams.
Stage Manager:
Katy Green