Now Is The Time To Say Nothing
by Reem Karssli and Caroline Young
Fri 10 May: 4.30pm+7pm+8.30pm
Sat 11 May: 2pm+4pm+6.30pm
@ Peterborough Regional College, Park Crescent, Peterborough, PE1 4DZ
Tickets: £11 / £7 concessions*
Or call The Key Theatre Box Office on 01733 207239
Age recommendation: 12+ - please note contains depictions of War.
Running time: 60 mins
*CONCESSION ELIGIBILITY FOR “NOW IS THE TIME TO SAY NOTHING”: Students and staff of PRC/UCP, people in the receipt of any income related or disability benefits, carers, and full-price ticket holders for Platform8 Season6 COAT She’s A Good Boy and Juliet & Romeo. Proof of eligibility may be required on collection of tickets. Refunds for full price to concession tickets cannot be made.
Now Is The Time To Say Nothing is an interactive sound and video installation exploring the role of screens in observing global conflicts. The show is a provocation against armchair passivity.
Using stunning video and immersive sound, it follows the real story of Syrian artist Reem Karssli as she captures her daily experience of the Syrian conflict on camera.
We see what emerges when she is contacted by a group of teenagers from the UK who want to see beyond the footage they’ve watched on their TVs.
Together they co-author an experience which attempts to connect a UK audience to the human story behind the news. Created over four years, following Reem into an exile which forces her to leave her camera behind, Now Is The Time To Say Nothing is an intimate exploration of what it means to stay connected to each other and of what happens when war and the need for survival gets in the way.
LEAD ARTISTS
Caroline Williams is an award-winning artist working in multi-disciplinary participatory performance. She represented the UK at the Prague Quadrennial with her performance installation for the V&A Museum Shakespeare’s Fools. Other projects include Can You Hear Me Now (MAYK), Make Yourself At Home (Nuit Blanche Brussels), Millions of Years (English National Opera), Dad Dancing with Second Hand Dance, Shadwell’s Tempest and Le Malade Imaginaire (Shakespeare’s Globe).
Reem Karssli is a Syrian film-maker and researcher now living in Berlin. Reem Karssli made her first film Everyday Everyday with independent film producers Hakawti. It is an intimate and honest portrayal of her family, as they become internally displaced in Damascus.
“Exquisitely simple and moving. This is a cunningly constructed and heartfelt piece that acknowledges the complexities of what is happening in Syria, reminds how sitting in the dark watching a screen only distances us, and actively tries to bring us together to reach out to the real people, just like us, whose lives are blighted by war.”
“If the essence of theatre is an invitation to imagine that we are someone else and for a moment to see the world through their eyes, then this is truly theatre at its most essential.”
Reviews
‘It’s an act as instinctive and multi-layered as a hug. It’s full of conflict, full of genuinely unanswerable questions, full of love. Its aesthetics feel a bit like an Adam Curtis film without the authorial stridency – just as musical, just as careful, but any statements it makes are far more personal. Now Is The Time To Say Nothing transports you to a state of deep empathy where so many different kinds of reaction are allowed. It’s just over three hours since I’ve seen it, and I’d be surprised if in 3 years I’ve fully understood what it’s done to me.’ Tim X Atack
‘Now Is The Time To Say Nothing by is one of the most powerful and beautiful pieces I’ve seen in a long time.’ - Mike Tweddle, Tobacco Factory
Other Credits
Video design by Sound design byProduced by
Christina Hardinge Lewis Gibson
Produced by MAYK
Original sound by Keir Vine and Tom Parkinson
Original video by May Abdalla
DON'T FORGET There are 6 other shows in Season 6 - May 2019 - WHAT ELSE WILL YOU TRY?
