Freefall

Description

There are things I haven't said. Things I want to say again. I need to think. I need more time. A sudden shock, and a man's life flashes before his eyes. He experiences an intense rush of extraordinary images and tangled memories, revelations and lost connections. People time and places swirl around him. As he valiantly attempts to stitch it all back together, will his luck hold out? The play's conceit follows a man who has suffered a stroke experiencing a series of flashbacks. Trapped within his own head, the audience are taken with him through a whistlestop tour of his life: a series of vivid, often painful episodes from childhood tragedy to crumbling marriage. In a beguiling portrait of mortality and humanity, Freefall explores memory, family and loss. From the author of Dublin by Lamplight and Foley, Freefall reunites award-winning Irish playwright Michael West with The Corn Exchange: Dublin's innovative theatre company who explore the boundaries and possibilities of theatre with their trademark style of Commedia dell'Arte. Freefall is a sharp, humorous and exhilarating look at the fragility of a human life, blending impressionistic beauty, poignancy and comedy.

Michael West has worked on a number of collaborations with the Dublin-based Corn Exchange Theatre Company in the past, including Dublin by Lamplight, Foley and A Play on Two Chairs. He has written numerous translations that have been produced, including Death and the Ploughman (Gate Theatre, London), The Seagull, The Marriage of Figaro (Abbey Theatre) and Tartuffe (Gate Theatre, Dublin).

funny, touching, and arrestingly original ... a beautiful, sustained act of ensemble wondering at the peculiar business of being alive, of all that striving and struggling, loving and losing. Highly recommended. -- Dominic Cavendish * Daily Telegraph *