Twenty Years in Hospital

A theatre performance output made with the researcher and research participant performers in Cyrff Ystwyth. This work was created in response to a person with learning and physical disabilities who wanted to express issues around experiences dealing with medical procedures, his identity and agency within his social context and his medical diagnosis. The work considered how trauma and medical intervention became impossible to express through language and at the same time remained a pressing concern for this participant to communicate. The practice research output enquires into how an individual might be represented by others and in turn be representative of others. The work asks how performance might enable a move beyond representation that disguises, or seeks to alleviate the appearance of disability and in particular learning disability. The work seeks to continue previous engagements with self representation whilst reacting with the contemprary field of theatre and performance. How might the unspeakable be communicated and how might the information within such communication contribute to understanding the complexities of personal identity that may be reified as soley the sum of pathology.