Live worms on stage as Darwinian theatre comes to the BRLSI
Bent Architect, the brainchild of Mick Martin & Jude Wright, is a theatre company that exists to create fresh, engaging, entertaining work. This year they’ve received funding from the Arts Council to develop and tour nationally with a new production 'Darwin's Worms'.
"It is not our aim to get hung up on dry science" says Mick. "We are about creating lively, irreverent, visually exciting and very funny theatre. The character of Charles Darwin himself is very interesting and appealing to us dramatically; in addition we wish to pursue the idea of applying Darwinian theory, the key integers of Natural Selection, to the process of creating theatre".
As the project developed, members of the scientific community from Manchester Museum and the Natural History Museum were involved with the intensive research. "We looked at how the ideas and central themes of evolution and natural selection could work for us as a dramatic entity”, Mick continues, “Cataclysmic event, random action, chance, energy and brute
"It is not our aim to get hung up on dry science" says Mick. "We are about creating lively, irreverent, visually exciting and very funny theatre. The character of Charles Darwin himself is very interesting and appealing to us dramatically; in addition we wish to pursue the idea of applying Darwinian theory, the key integers of Natural Selection, to the process of creating theatre".
As the project developed, members of the scientific community from Manchester Museum and the Natural History Museum were involved with the intensive research. "We looked at how the ideas and central themes of evolution and natural selection could work for us as a dramatic entity”, Mick continues, “Cataclysmic event, random action, chance, energy and brute
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THEATRE AT THE BRSI - DARWIN’S WORMS, 26TH MARCH
force - these are all terms that we pulled from our reading and research of how natural selection works, but they also all have a great meaning in terms of how character and dramatic action is generated too. What if our play was catapulted into life by a huge cataclysmic seemingly random chance event? One that generates masses of energy and propels our characters onto consequential courses of action that they do not appear to have any control over?"
Featuring live worms on stage, the play peers gleefully into Darwin's fascination with these humble creatures. He used to lay them out on his billiard table and ask his children to play the bassoon and the piano to them and then study their reactions. His was intrigued that the worm in its own miniscule fashion affects and shapes the very earth we live and walk upon. For the earth itself has passed through and been fed by the worms.
"The play looks into the legacy of Darwin, and how it speaks to each of us now more importantly than ever, focusing on contemporary society and how
Featuring live worms on stage, the play peers gleefully into Darwin's fascination with these humble creatures. He used to lay them out on his billiard table and ask his children to play the bassoon and the piano to them and then study their reactions. His was intrigued that the worm in its own miniscule fashion affects and shapes the very earth we live and walk upon. For the earth itself has passed through and been fed by the worms.
"The play looks into the legacy of Darwin, and how it speaks to each of us now more importantly than ever, focusing on contemporary society and how
we face important questions about morality, spirituality and existence," Mick explains. "This is a story about how our individual lives are all interlinked and how we can make a difference if we choose to make them do so. In an age when religious fervour and creationist theory seize the agenda, the importance of asserting not just the secular principle, but the value of science over religious fundamentalism, is central to the production". •
