STILL BARRED
What if your traumatic experience transported you elsewhere?
To a place of healing. A mystical world of correction, femininity x insanity. Welcome to steel barred island...
Exploring dreams, mental health, abuse and sedition; Still Barred is a lyrical theatre piece centred on four female prisoners' psyches playing puppet to a punitive overpower known as Reality. Elii, the dreamer; Mon, the marker; Jo, the writer; and Yaz, the washer. As they tend to their Promethean wounds, they discover there may be a way out if they can avoid stepping on each other's egos for long enough.
...I really liked that for a piece on a very dark topic it had lots of light moments and the characters didn't just dwell in misery..."
"..The play is exceptional and I really hope it tours because it deserves to be seen.."
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The piece debuted with a 10mins scratch performance at Battersea Arts Centre's: Homegrown Festival (2016).
A sold-out rehearsed reading of the piece took place soon after, featuring panel discussions centred on "Black Women & How We Deal With Trauma".
The panel included fellow MAKE: Sustain Artist '17 Heather Agyepong; Talawa's very own Gail Babb; race, culture & equality consultant Guilaine Kinounani; actress, twerker and "Benz-Punani" Womanist Kelechi Okafor; and Poet, Actress (Ackee & Saltfish) and Spoken Word Educator Michelle Tiwo.
The piece would then close 2016 with an excerpt shown at Melanin Stages. And was part of the discussion on Black female visibility on stage, on screen and in behind the scenes roles of production.