Like A Fountain Troubled ~ The Tale of a Piece of Mind is a two cast, one act play for women about alternative therapy.

The audience, seated either side of the stage are privy to a most intimate and restrained relationship, an hour's 'session' between a counsellor and her counselled, a confused young woman who has turned to a stranger offering 'therapy' as an answer to what are perceived as 'problems' in her personality.

Alice, a seemingly and self-confessed 'troubled' personality, comes to Dot's alternative, private counselling service 'Fountain Therapy Centre' seeking 'help'. Over the course of their hour session, we watch as secrets slip and masks are nudged and layers are built and peeled away, in an intimately wary relationship.

A story about the art of paying a stranger to listen, and the art of being that stranger.

 

 

 The 'Fountain Therapy Centre' Little Wooden Ladies 

 

 

 Alice (Charlotte Sanderson) confides in alternative therapist Dotty (Gillian Twaite)

 

"I've never felt like an Alice. I'm not like the original Alice."

"We'll all original Alice. Like, rain drops. You talk a lot about, 'being original'. Who is this 'original Alice?' "

"Of Wonderland. You know, blonde space cadet that ate and drank things she shouldn't have, as long as it had a label on it.  I was obsessed with eating and drinking things without labels on. Although that's not why I'm here."

 

Dot's 'alternative' methods become increasingly strange, and their relationship becomes increasingly strained.

 

Set in a private counselling practice, Dot is a transcendental therapist, who believes in alternative approaches, 'beyond common thought or experience, mystical or supernatural'. Increasingly miffed with Dot's increasingly strange methods, including hypnotherapy and oddly conveyed displacement theories, Alice's frustrations rise towards the repressed and anxious Dot. 

"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."

 

 

 

 Old Joint Stock Theatre, Birmingham

 

The play is suitable for an intimate environment, and 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 Untamed Shrew to tailor the performance area. For the 'Fountain Therapy Centre' where the play is set, a traverse stage was used, with audience seated either side of the stage. With therapist Dot already seated and dimly lit 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 adventorous chose to avoid or enter the character's space, which would soon emerge to be her 'office'.

What it also did, was pitch the audience against eachother, which was intended to reflect the theme of the play, confronting a stranger, whilst at the same time experiencing something intimate and personal. What mask they chose to present to the other side of the audience, what face they pulled, what emotions they expressed, or not, was a decision that had to be confronted. Given that they were no 'fourth wall', but second and fourth walls, all attention could not purely be directed on the characters on stage. The audience themselves were under as much scrutiny, as much as the counselled character and counsellor on stage.  

 

  

Alice (Charlotte Sanderson) becomes increasingly miffed with the 'therapy' she is receiving at the 'Fountains Therapy Centre'.

Actress Gillian Twaite discusses her character 'Dotty' with writer Victoria Grainger

 

 

 

 

 

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