Like a Fountain Troubled

~ The Tale of a Piece of Mind ~

by Victoria Grainger 

~ A play about the fine art of paying a stranger to listen  ~ 

~ and the art of being that stranger ~

Set in 'The Fountain Therapy Centre', a private, alternative therapy counselling practice, the audience are privy to a most intimate relationship, an hour's 'session' between a counsellor and her counselled, Dot, a transcendental therapist who believes in alternative approaches 'beyond common thought or experience, mystical and supernatural', and Alice a self-confessed 'troubled' personality. Secrets slip, masks are nudged, layers are built and peeled back in an intimately wary relationship.

"Can I ask how many counsellors you've seen before me?"

"Yes. Seven."

"What made you come to me?"

"You had the biggest ad in the Yellow Pages"

 Image: With Dot's (Gillian Twaite) increasingly strange use of hypnotherapy and 'alternative' methods, Alice's (Charlotte Sanderson) frustrations rise towards repressed & anxious Dot, and their relationship becomes strained. 

"Getting to the truth was never going to be easy Alice."

"The truth? The truth is, I still don't tell you the truth. I'm scared you'll think I'm a freak. I'm scared I'll think I'm a freak. So I do what I do to everyone. I do what I do to myself. I lie. I edit. And present."

 Image: The play can be staged end-on, in-the-round or traverse. 

The flexible Old Joint Stock stage where the play was first performed in 2008, allowed a tailored performance area. For the 'Fountain Therapy Centre' a traverse stage was used with audience seated either side of the stage. With therapist 'Dot' already seated on stage as the audience entered, half the play-goers had to decide whether to cross the playing area to get to their seats. It created a strange atmosphere, as the audience, half timid, half adventurous had to choose to avoid or enter the character's space which would emerge to be her 'office'. 'We' as well as the client, were on 'her turf' from the off. 

The audience seated across from eachother and being pitched against eachother reflected the theme of the play - confronting a stranger whilst experiencing something intimate. What mask they chose to present to the other side of the audience, what emotions they expressed, or not, was a decision that had to be confronted. The audience were under as much scrutiny as the characters on stage.