… “mixing memory and desire” … a meditation on recollection, fantasy and dream terminating at Stratford …
There are three London transport lines with branches terminating at Stratford East London (the Overground, DLR and Jubilee lines). ‘To Stratford’ focusses on three un-named men, each travelling on one of these three lines, gradually converging on that same point in space and time. The audience see them on their trains, and hear the sounds of everyday life and the station announcements around them as they close in on their common destination. But between stations the focus shifts from the external to the internal – the mental landscapes that are the thoughts / memories / feelings the three men on the three trains are experiencing.
The show is thus made up of a patchwork of real, remembered moments and imagined dreams and fantasies (“bewildered fragments”, to quote Sarah Kane’s ‘4:48 Psychosis’). Although there is no classic linear ‘plot’ as such (they are not travelling to Stratford for a common purpose or anything of that nature), there is a developed through-line ‘character arc’ for each of the three men such that as the piece progresses the audience comes to know them and to understand and identify with their current situations, their concerns and dilemmas at this particular juncture of their lives.
Some of the fragments are for solo voice – monologue in form, featuring only the character experiencing that particular memory / fantasy / dream. Other fragments feature different characters – ‘the others’, external players (real or imagined) in the mindscapes of the three main men.
The overall effect is to create a kaleidoscopic portrait of contemporary queer London.
