Bitef

The second part. The Lobster Shop, is about the future and its structure is that of a dream or nightmare, whichever you wish. In a dream, time, space and place are interchangeable, and in art the beginning is not necessarily the beginning and an end is by no means self-evident. The third part. The Deer House, is the present. One can conceive of the present in two ways (here we touch on the essence of theatre): the present of the world around us, by which I mean the world in its broad political and historical significance, and the present of the world we perceive when we look at someone who is doing something and knows he is being watched. The medium of theatre and the reality of the actors at the moment it occurs. Good theatre always examines the reality of the medium itself. 1 was prompted to write The Deer House by the sometimes tragic peripheral events that take place within the close circle of NC. While we were on tour somewhere in France, one of our dancers, Tijen Lawton, received the news that her brother, the journalist Kerem Lawton, had been shot dead in Kosovo. His tragic death provided the starting point fora play about a group of theatre-makers who are increasingly faced with the harsh reality of the world they travel around in. Everything is politics, but art isn't everything. Art always gets caught between the pages of history: it is futile and has no influence on any events at all, which is where the mysterious necessity for it lies.