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Dead
Hands
A young man learns
that his father is dying. He drives furiously to reach the bedside. But
he arrives too late. The dead man's mistress shows him to the room where
the body lies and leaves him to his grief. Later his younger brother appears.
He was present at the death but his attitude is strangely ambiguous. He
seems reluctant to engage with his elder brother, who immediately suspects
him of a guilty secret. Freed from the inhibitions
and expectations present when the dead man was alive, his mourners become
consumed by increasingly feverish imagining. Paranoia, suspicion and guilt
build a powerfully tense atmosphere as their characters start to disintegrate… Dead Hands is an intimately emotional piece about the experience of death in a family. It shows how the silence of the recently died can provoke a strained and bitter dialogue among the survivors. Barker's plays have often celebrated the secret. Here the secrets of the dead inspire extreme speculation. Should we fear death not for itself but for the fate that it inflicts on the survivors? The legacy of death is not only a dispensing of property but also of emotion, pain and a remembered life. If death is the last great secret, then those who witness it must surely be drawn into its mystery? Dead Hands will
be directed by Howard Barker in the company's distinctive style, working
with the team that created the highly successful productions of 13
Objects, Gertrude, and He Stumbled. TOUR SCHEDULE
Supported by Arts Council England
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Current
Projects
Death
can also transform the living…