Shows at Checkpoint

The Nether

The Nether is a fully immersive virtual reality that comes to replace the internet. This technological wonder has taken over the real world to the point where most people work and study there. Apart from various business opportunities, the Nether also provides endless possibilities for fulfilling any dreams and desires, even the most disturbing ones – just log in and choose an identity. The play investigates the borders of the permissible in the virtual world. It focuses in particular on the ethical correctness of a relationship between two consenting adults in their 50s, one of whom, however, assumes the virtual identity of a child.

Checkpoint • 28 Mar 2017 - 1 Apr 2017

Mary Barnes

“For me, it was best of all…just to see ourselves, each other, all our, lumpy nakedness. To hear our voices, all their, I don’t know, their rasping melody. Capture our lives in all their, well, their messy majesty.” Based on a real-life account, the play follows artist/painter Mary Barnes’ journey through madness and the birth of her creative career. Set in 1960s London, we follow Mary’s decline and recovery in Kingsley Hall, an alternative psychiatric community established by radical Scottish psychotherapist R.D. Laing. In this chaotic East London house, schizophrenics and psychotherapists live side-by-side. Intertwined lives are presented in all “their messy majesty”, as wit-spun conversations, conflicts and dinner-table combustions confront wider ethical questions about sanity and society still relevant today.

Checkpoint • 19 Apr 2016 - 23 Apr 2016