The Procrastination Project
Procrastination, action, activism in the 21st Century.
My evil genius Procrastination has whispered me to tarry 'til a more convenient season. Mary Todd Lincoln An eerily timeless landscape is the setting for this visceral re-imagining of the ghostly purgatorial world of Hamlet. Two women are caught in a bizarre holding pattern, hamstrung by incessant rituals… waiting …. waiting…… waiting…. In ‘The Procrastination Project’, Deborah Leiser-Moore and Kate Hunter draw on current research in cognitive science, tropes of procrastination and texts from ‘Hamlet’ - the greatest procrastinator of all time – to interrogate its complex manifestations in contemporary life. Image: Leo Dale Development: Research and development: 2015: Artist residency at Substation 2015: New York development A first showing of the work in progress was presented as part of the Exploration Season at La Mama Theatre in Nov/Dec 2015 In developing ‘The Procrastination Project’ we ask: What is the relationship between procrastination and activism? What is it to act? How is it manifested in the digital era (when it’s so easy to get involved with the click of a button)? We ‘like’, we hashtag, we re-post, we Instagram, we share, we talk we talk we talk! But what do we actually do? Have we adopted a ‘weary and stale’ approach to life? Or one in which our subsequent actions are more extreme than they have ever been? Hamlet’, a play about action versus inaction, is the perfect framework for this piece. Our research and development, prompted by essential themes of Hamlet, uses chapters to explore: - The science of procrastination - The nature of revenge - Hamlet’s Kaddish (prayer for the dead) - Contemporary activism - The Purgatorial State Deborah Leiser-Moore, fresh from performing in Richard Schechner’s ‘Imagining O’ in New York, and Kate Hunter (http://www.katehuntertheatre.com), associate artist with award-winning physical theatre company Born in a Taxi, join forces to investigate the insidious nature and consequences of procrastination that is… ‘The Procrastination Project’. |
Performed at:
2016 George Paton Gallery Melbourne Performance Studies International 2015 La Mama Theatre 'Explorations' Season of new works |
