The Truth About Bedtime… is a devised performance, combining verbatim theatre with physical sections. The show tells the story of many different people who have remained anonymous and exhibits how differently we, as humans, experience sleep.
Oxford Dictionaries defines sleep as “a condition of body and mind which typically recurs for several hours every night, in which the nervous system is inactive, the eyes closed, the postural muscles relaxed, and consciousness practically suspended” (Oxford Dictionaries, undated). Our sleep is made up of five stages which repeat throughout the night to create the sleep cycle. Each individual stage of this cycle has different effects on your body. For example, in stage one “the eyes move slowly and muscle activity slows” (Tuck, 2018), whereas in REM sleep (rapid eye movement) your eyes move rapidly from side to side and your body is paralysed.
The Truth About Bedtime… is rooted in verbatim theatre. Sherbet Lemon Theatre have gathered stories from over twenty-five people and these accounts are at the centre of the show, as words are physicalised in order to both show and tell the audience how sleep can vary. The verbatim theatre focuses particularly on sleep disorders, ranging from lucid dreaming to sleep paralysis. These sleep disorders have a tremendous impact on the day-to-day life of sufferers and “researchers have linked sleep-related illnesses to hypertension, stroke, congestive heart failure, depression, and an overall decreased quality of life” (The London Sleep Centre, undated).
The combination of emotive verbatim theatre and high-energy, comedic scenes has resulted in a show that exhibits the light and shade of our sleep, the sweet and sour, if you will. This is not a show about us, this is a show about you.
E.W.
Works Cited:
Oxford Dictionaries (undated) Oxford Living Dictionaries: Sleep. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Available from https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/sleep [accessed 19 April 2018].
The London Sleep Centre (undated) The London Sleep Centre: Normal Sleep. Available from http://londonsleepcentre.com/normal-sleep/ [accessed 7 February 2018].
Tuck (2018) Tuck: Advancing Better Sleep: Stages of Sleep and Sleep Cycles. Available from https://www.tuck.com/stages/ [accessed 1 February 2018].