“A man, torn apart by a thousand different voices”

 

Drawing on the beliefs of Dryden and Purcell that the Pythagorean spheres cure ‘madness’ and ‘rage’. This dramaturgical interpretation of Music For A While considers mental health, the ways in which we seek peace with the voices we hear internally that promote rage, doubt and anxiety. 

 

Oedipus questions ‘How can these torrents of emotion be stilled and reasoned and restored’

Alecto’s snakes' heads dropping, one by one, suggest a passing of time and perseverance. We consider how sometimes it is only with time and accepting our internal states of chaos, that we are able to find stillness and restore peace with the ‘music’ within us.

 

During Covid 19 lockdown we grappled over Satre’s concept of Absurdism, ‘Man is an evolved animal in an ‘anti human’ universe’, we considered over the depths our psyche travels to seek reason and release in this world. 

This concept sat as a satirical background in contrast to the reality we were facing in the arts during lockdown, dealing with the loss of life, our creative purpose’s being stripped from us and appearing so trivial in contrast to the reality before us. 

Whilst humanity desperately grappled to seek meaning behind it all, purpose within and fought silently in their own homes to silence the many voices creating noise both internally and externally. We all sought both connection and solace, if only for a while.

 

We questioned if the solution is in making peace with the musical cacophony in our own minds, “for a while.” Or can the answers be sought else where?