Perceptive New Play, THE REAL Shines A Light On Mental Health And Rising Pressures For Future Generations

World premiere of The Real comes to the Cockpit Theatre, highlighting the harsh reality of modern-day mental health struggles, Thursday 29th September - Saturday 1st October 2022

This autumn, award-winning artist and renowned writer, Linnea Langfjord Kristensen (Young Artist Award 2021, International Symposium on Sonic Art and Spatial Audio; Summer Crush, Asbæk Gallery) provides audiences with a bittersweet taste of the truth in her new perceptive play, The Real. Coming to The Cockpit Theatre for the first time, audiences are invited to examine their own journeys of success and self-discovery through the societal pressures shown in this Big Brother-esque reality.

The cast includes Henriette B Laursen (Going Straight To Gay... Or Something In-Between, UK Tour; Deadly Nightshade, Obscuriscopic Films), Tom Cray (Richard II, The Vaults; Late Night Horror, Pleasance Theatre), Meg Lake (Preservation, Crosshatch Studios; Regarding Annabel, RoLo Productions), Drew Sheridan-Wheeler (Money Heist, Fever/Netflix; Unexpected, The Cockpit Theatre) and Lucy Spreckley (Little Red Riding Hood, Laugh out Loud Theatre; Everything Between Us, Marylebone Theatre).

Set in a reality that enforces punishment as a result of failure, the story follows the lives of four individuals who are struggling to fulfil their "full potentials". The show's themes highlight the psychological strain that can stem from the pressures of the outside world, amplified by a constant need to get ahead. Inability to focus for long periods of time, loss of appetite and co dependency are all physical symptoms of an unceasing world. The play examines the impact on future generations and how this pressure to constantly progress might have shifted to not be as beneficial as society once thought.

Audiences will play an active role in the curation of each show, to emphasise the direct overlap in performance culture and mental health. To raise awareness of rising mental health struggles that young adults face, The Real will provide audiences with an analysis of self-understanding to prompt crucial conversations around this topic.

Director Alan Fielden comments, There's a unique tone, or atmosphere, to The Real. It's a play that explores contemporary aches - success, authenticity, conformity, loss, systems of control - with a language that's eerie yet vivid, at times disorienting, and then ecstatic. From a technical

point of view, I'm very excited by this act of theatrical translation, taking a play that has existed and toured digitally and translating it into an in-the-round experience. For me, that's a fascinating technical and creative proposition.

The creative team behind The Real are writer Linnea Langfjord Kristensen (Young Artist Award 2021, International Symposium on Sonic Art and Spatial Audio; Summer Crush, Asbæk Gallery) and director Alan Fielden (Winner of The Oxford Samuel Beckett Theatre Trust Award 2018; ROOM, Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Tate Britain, Latitude Festival).

Learn more at https://www.thecockpit.org.uk/show/the_real.

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