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Bryna: Roger Babb, our director here, has his history in brain projects.
It was so well done! They were so synchronized.
It was really cool.
Yeah, I definitely found it funny.
I listen to these BBC podcasts.
(Radio) Thank you for downloading from the BBC.
They had a three-part series on recent breakthroughs in neuroscience.
In this first program, I'm going to look at
what happens when parts of the brain stops working normally, either through
damage or unusual development, and how the behavior that results tells
us about the normal workings of the brain.
Now, I've come meet someone who illustrates that very well.
He's called Tommy and he lives in this house that I'm just outside of.
I'm just going to go in and find him.
And I have made a number of plays about science and particularly brain stuff.
So I thought well, I'll do that at Mount Holyoke.
All over the floor on the carpet, literally, floor to ceiling, literally,
is painting everywhere, quite beautiful.
On the floor, there's kind of figures melding into other figures.
Then up the stairs, it's all over there.
Jane: Developing a character based on the voices we were already given was
a really fun and exciting challenge, actually.
The physical aspect of it sort of came along with the vocal.
Well, Tommy had a brain injury where one of the blood vessels in his brain
burst and caused some blood...
Once you were used to the voice, it sort of started to inform the body,
and in listening to that voice and using that voice as a motivator for the body,
we were able to develop these characters,
which ended up being pretty dynamic and funny.
Roger Babb: The neurological material is really complicated,
so we're trying to do this kind of slowing things down and repeating
things to allow the audience in.
Who is the agent of the actions the anarchic hand performs?
Who is the agent of the actions the anarchic hand performs?
They do things with one hand that they say they do not want to do.
They try to undo what the anarchic hand does.
Ending up in a fight and a conflict between the two hands.
Bryna: What we're trying to do is to present the really dense
material in an interesting way and an accessible way so we're
trying to use humor as a giant element in presenting this.
Bryna: They try to talk to the hand. To sit on it.
They try to convince other people that if it is the hand...
Roger Babb: The theatre in general is made up of these little tiny,
tiny moments that are repeated over and over and over again.
- Have you got it? - I think so.
- Hooverin'
- Moppin'
The process in theatre is to replicate these actions over and over until
they're in the body and you don't even think about them anymore.
So once that's done, when it's in the body,
which is long process of repetition and reiteration,
then you can do this acting on top of that.
Jane: We're standing on a carpet that's painted.
Bryna: Yeah, I've painted the carpet.
It's taken me gallons and gallons of paint because it absorbs so much.
I thought I'd get away with Hoovering, but I stopped the Hoovering.
Now I've got to mop it to keep it clean.
Audience Member: The exaggerated actions and accents sort of made it theatrical
while also they also conveyed information about complex things like anarchic hands
and compulsive creativity after a stroke, things like that.
Yeah, yeah, I didn't know about will and the environment thing,
but it makes sense, right?
We wanted to make it an accessible piece and not just something really, you know,
experimental and crazy. You know, it's actually very interesting content,
and it's something you would want to learn about.