What would you do if you were trapped in a boardroom with a ticking clock and the survival of humanity rested on your shoulders? This is the setting of Exeter University Theatre Company’s Ideation. While first performed in 2014, Aaron Leob’s sinister comedy still relates to today’s society and aims to leave the audience wanting more. The Indiependent spoke to the team behind this intriguing production to learn more about the play and what it is like to perform at Edinburgh Fringe.
The Indiependent: What is the concept of your show and how did it come about?
The Ideation team: Our director Chlöe Hallsworth first came across and read the script about four years ago. The script is fast-paced, has incredible attention to detail and is so intelligent; it enables its audience the space to engage with complex issues of morality through a chaotic and hilarious microcosm of the American workplace. As a play that is not widely known in the UK, Chlöe was excited by the possibilities that could take it from page to stage. When the opportunity to pitch it as a Fringe play for Exeter University Theatre Company came about, it had to be done. With its contrastingly dark, psychological subject matter and light-hearted atmosphere, we knew this play had to be brought to audiences this year.
What sets the experience of performing at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival apart from other venues?
The Edinburgh Fringe offers a completely different environment to our previous Exeter venues in which we can spark the play’s discussion around the “delineation between fact and fantasy.” With its sheer number of people and perspectives, this venue allows us to instigate the ripple of enquiry that the play demands: what do we know, what don’t we know, and who is in control? We hope that this will continue past our audiences and into the wider crowd at Fringe.
Why is this play important now?
The past three years have seen the divide between the decision makers behind closed doors, and the everyday people they affect, continue to grow. This play gives its audiences a window into the room where it happens to experience the irrationality that we have all come to suspect. That being said, this play does not look to alienate its audiences with a political agenda but to leave them wrapped up in a debate of paranoia and humanity.
When there’s so much to choose from at the Fringe, why should people come and see Ideation?
‘Ideation’ means to think; but this play will also make you feel. Audiences should come to lose themselves in the real time, dilemma-solving chaos of the play. There is a human fascination with finding humour in darkness and the psychological thrill of Ideation expertly pairs the two to allow audiences to reflect upon, and find catharsis in the order—and chaos—of the mundane.
Ideation will be performed at TheSpaceTriplex on 27 August as part of Edinburgh Fringe.
Words by Ellen Leslie
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