Connections 2023: (Circle Dreams Around) The Terrible, Terrible Past

Performed by Ilkley Players Greenroom, West Yorkshire

A play about being young in the fields and towns that feel far away from where things might be happening; a play about the expectations of life and the circularity of human existence. Someone has a recurring dream. It’s a bit weird. There are fish, chickens, cows, who all look and sound like people – people who look kind of familiar. And there’s a butcher, killing people. And the dream feels like a circle – going round and round and back to the start again. They can’t get free of it – it’s like a line eating its own arse.

Which means we’re stuck in their dream too, watching it with them. We see the fields and rivers they visit in the half light. And raves they’ve been to with people jumping out of the windows and losing their legs. And the careers advisor from school advising jobs like being a water carrier, or a chimney sweep, or a candlestick maker or a fishmonger. They dream about the past mainly, a past that they don’t belong to but the past wants to belong to them. It’s forcing its way inside, so that their future looks like the past.

See? It’s a bit weird. It always starts with someone selling someone some crabs and it all gets progressively surreal from there. And there doesn’t seem to be any way out.

Content guidance

• Recommended for ages 14+
• Strong language.
• A brief reference to substance abuse.
• One brief, mildly sexually explicit conversation.
• The following are seen within the context of a dream: a dead body covered in blood, and weapons including an axe, a meat cleaver and a bolt gun.

This performance will be Captioned