Some years ago, playwright Peter Handke was sitting in a town square watching people come and go. Suddenly men carrying a coffin emerged from a house and transformed the square into a stage, lending each vignette that followed – a woman walking her dog, a couple having an argument, a man jogging – special meaning. Read more …
Inspired by this experience, The Hour We Knew Nothing of Each Other is a play without words, narrated by music and animated by unspoken interaction. This production gives the simple pleasure of people-watching a vibrant dramatic life as the audience weave a narrative out of the everyday scenes of a city.
This 450-character production will be taking to The Lyceum stage directed by Lyceum Associate Artist Wils Wilson and Janice Parker. We are throwing open the doors of The Lyceum and welcoming a large scale cast of Edinburgh residents onto the stage to create this exciting production.
Dizzying in its invention and almost ludicrously ambitious in scope, The Hour we Knew Nothing Of Each Other at the Lyceum is undoubtedly uneven but always intriguing.
The Hour We Knew Nothing of Each Other doesn’t necessarily tell us anything about ourselves, nor of those around us. Yet it can move us with the simple concept of a thousand stories, all in one book: Life.
Heart-warming and heart-breaking, funny and sad, The Hour… is full of vignettes that make a lasting impression. Having watched it, you truly feel you’ve seen the world.
Certainly, the scope and ambition of the production are to be commended, with the ending reveal of backstage and the number of props and costumes used being awe-inspiring; however, the final product doesn’t entirely succeed in its intent.
As people go on no matter what, the whole becomes a life-affirming sketchbook of how we live now, tomorrow and the day after.
'Gloriously risky': Edinburgh residents play 450 characters in wordless play.
The hour of inspiration
Wils Wilson--Peter Handke and The Hour We Knew Nothing of Each Other
Royal Lyceum, Edinburgh from Thursday May 31, 2018, until Saturday June 2, 2018. More info: www.lyceum.org.uk
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