The Dentist's Chair - Notes
Justin's notes
More than ten years on from the premiere of Krishnan's Dairy and Indian Ink is still going strong. Jacob and I still like one another, we still live in different cities and we now have the status of 'Mid Career Artists.' I have to pinch myself sometimes that I have a career as a theatre maker and that indeed many of my dreams have come true. But what happens after your dreams come true?
The spark for The Dentist's Chair was the idea of fear; ghosts and the notion that life makes cowards of us all. My greatest fears are about losing the things I have dreamed about and value the most - my family, my health, my career, my comfortable life - a deep fear of having to start again. But the story has a mind of its own and at a certain point in the making of this show I have had to let my ideas go and allow the story find its own path. The hardest thing is to see what is right in front of me and then get out of the way.
One of the things that allows me to do this is the audience. I only really know what we have made when our work is in front of an audience. We continue to write and work after the premiere performance and I am very grateful for what audiences give back to us. And what I see now when I look at the play surprises me in a good way. I think this has become a piece about faith rather than fear. Everyone drags their feet about going to the dentist but when your tooth aches you can't get there quick enough. Perhaps if God had a job he would be a dentist and maybe Albert is a hero for our times - a fear filled dentist whose greatest enemy is himself.
As always, we began with the masks but this time we have ended up somewhere new. The essence of the masks remains, in a set of teeth, a way of walking and a theatricality that is open to the audience, but the story has demanded a new style of playing. Knowing what to keep and what to let go has tested me and, as always, has required a leap into the unknown for this story to find its form.
I have been drawn forward by a love of live music, story and theatricality and by the wonderful creative team who have brought such fresh energy and so much of themselves to this work. As a hero Albert's resistance to change has frustrated me at times but he has also inspired in me a deep compassion. His story is full of pain but I'd also like to think is full of love, forgiveness and redemption.
The Dentist's Chair is a new show for us, the start of a new body of work. It is feels unfamiliar, a bit scary but it also feels very good to have reached this point, sharing our story with you.
