Be Gentle With Me
“I was always to some degree in pain. I had days where I was in less pain and days when I was in more pain.
But I always had pain. Every single day of those eighteen years.”
–
Be Gentle With Me is about notions of illness. It is about being sick and being well, about private experience and public exposure, about feeling pain and watching it.
The piece explores illness that is long term or sudden, critical or everyday, as well as ideas around genetics and hereditariness, and how we communicate and share – or don’t share – our experiences of ill health. It is a duet for a 33-year-old woman and a 63-year-old man, a provocative, tender, funny and intimate show about our bodies as changing, fluctuating things.
Be Gentle With Me premiered at Cambridge Junction’s WATCH OUT Festival, on 28th May 2016. Very early work-in-progress showings were presented at HATCH Leicester, Pilot Nights at Warwick Arts Centre, Sprint at CPT, Buzzcut Glasgow, and PULSE Festival.
Concept Ira Brand | Performance Ira Brand & Gerard Bell | Choreography Laura Dannequin | Dramaturgy Anne Rieger | Lighting Design Alex Fernandes | Producer Abby Butcher
Developed with support from Cambridge Junction, ICIA Bath, Norwich Arts Centre, Shoreditch Town Hall, and Arts Council England.
