John

From disability to homosexuality and Radical Islam, the DV8 Physical Theatre (run by Lloyd Newson in the United Kingdom) has always made a point of putting awkward and sensitive topics centre stage. For every one of his shows, Newson uses a thoroughly researched, almost journalistic approach to choreography, making great use of archives and conducting interviews to enrich his performances with real-life details.

For ‘John’ (the first in a three-part series), he’s interviewed around fifty men on the subject of sex and love, intertwining all of their stories into a larger narrative. In it, our hypersensitive protagonist John suffers psychologically and physically from his upbringing in a household with an abusive father and a mother who died from a drug overdose, and since then he’s spent most of his adult life either in prison or rehab. Not one for the faint-hearted, ‘John’ makes for a compelling (if heavy-going) evening out.

TRANSLATION: HUW OLIVER