A theatre group in Britain is putting together a play in which the star role will be played by a dead body.
Not an actor portraying a dead body, but an actual, real dead body.
It sounds wicked brilliant.
The play is called “Dead: You Will Be” and is looking to examine society’s attitudes towards death; and despite the fact that the theatre group doesn’t plan on having actors actually touch the body during the show, and that the group (for obvious reasons) is seeking a consenting donor, I’m betting this is something that will stir up some people’s indignation.
Company director Jo Dagless:
“The use of a body in this piece is integral to the direct confrontation of the issues that 1157 [the theatre group] want to encourage in the audience and the company and will, we hope, reawaken a collective response to our inevitable fates.”
It will be interesting to see how this pans out.
(via The Guardian: “Would you be seen dead in this show? Now’s your chance…” by Vanessa Thorpe (March 21, 2004))