PUSH
(First produced at The People Show Studios in London
in June 2003)
Written in collaboration with Alexa Wright, Sarah Woods and Cathrin Long, PUSH deals with chronic pain. The performance piece was revised after discussions with the specialists Dr. Charles Pither, Dr Anita Holdcroft, Dr Mick Seprell, and Patrick Wall, one of the world's leading authorities on pain, who died of cancer during the research period for PUSH. The performance contains both a live and a video part. The performer Cathrin Long, who herself suffers from chronic pain, plays the hooded shadow of a mountaineer, who starts off as an energetic climber but is increasingly tormented by headache, loses his ability to speak and is finally buried by his shadow. Cathrin Long is also present on video projections, telling the audience about her desperate experiences of chronic pain. Her reports are supported by statements of Dr Charles Pither, who represents the doctor's difficult experience with treating non-organic pain. There are also various projections of mountains, landscapes, people in pain etc. and textual fragments that accompany the performance. In addition to the video projections, there is a voice-over by Patrick Wall, who speaks both from the perspective of the patient and the doctor. In the final moment of the play, Cathrin Long emerges from the hooded shadow and she and the mountaineer start to talk intimately and softly about their shared experience of living with chronic pain.