Yasmin Sidhwa is artistic director of Mandala Theatre, and director of MAD(E) which is currently touring, and will come The Pleasance 14th – 18th March.
A tale of three boys existing within hostile environments, this hard-hitting production explores the individual journeys as each attempts to heal their broken minds with the help of a mythical shapeshifter.
MAD(E) utilises physical theatre, comic chorus and poetry, in a passionate, exhilarating and uniquely theatrical commentary on masculinity and young men’s mental health. We are all made – not mad.
Written by Sean Burn (Next Swan Down the River Might be Black, UK tour; collector of tears, Aurora Metro) and directed by Yasmin Sidhwa (Though this be Madness, UK tour; Castaways, UK tour) this production has been co-created with boys and young men nationally through investigative workshops, delicately drawing from their lived experiences of mental distress.
MAD(E) is on tour and coming to The Pleasance, what can you tell us about it?
MAD(E) is an epic story of life, death, and everything in between. Focused on the tale of three boys existing within hostile environments, carrying their worlds in an urn, a bivvy bag, and soil from the Motherland, it depicts three stories from different cultures, each of the lads living lives dodging a system that engulfs and traumatises them. When they are confronted with Beira – a mythical female shapeshifter, the play delves into the intricacies of their mental trauma and ways of dealing with wounds that make post-trauma growth possible.
The play is funny, it looks at masculinity and the how this manifests in society, so the audience has moments of fun and the space to laugh and recognise these moments. It is fast moving, with a lot of physical and visual theatre, so audiences are kept on their toes, it is alive with action. Finally, the language is very lyrical and rhythmic, which offers a different way into the story of the play where audiences need to listen with a different energy.
How did you become involved in the project?
In 2022 suicide rates for 15–19-year-olds were the highest they have been in 30 years. Suicide is the main cause of death in young people – male and female – under the age of 35 in the UK. In 2018, 1866 young people under the age of 35 took their own lives. Over three quarters of them were boys or young men.
These statistics told me and Mandala Theatre Company that something needed to be done. I felt that there was a serious crisis – young people with special educational needs or mental health issues, or ethnically diverse backgrounds or low-income backgrounds are especially vulnerable. Yet their voices are never heard. This new play we would create would give them a voice.
The research and development of MAD(E) began in February 2022 – we commissioned published writer Sean Burn, who has lived experience of mental distress, and Rapper and Spoken Word artist Kema Daley, to work with me, as director, in creative workshops with boys and young men up and down the country and used this research to feed the exploration and development of the new play – MAD(E).
As novelist and activist Elif Shafak so eloquently states, we need to ‘start by rehumanising those who have been dehumanised. And for that we need the art of storytelling’.
What was it about Sean Burn’s writing that really excited you?
Sean and I have worked together on a number of occasions over the last 10 years. I commissioned one of his earliest plays Voices when I worked at Pegasus Theatre, in Oxford. Since then, I have adapted two other plays of his – Collector of Tears and Blood Oil (which have toured internationally). Sean’s writing is beautifully poetic and rhythmic, he is able to write stories that are both epic and personal at the same time, which I love and he is very open to input. Sean and I share the same desire to create dialogue about mental health and healing and he brings an openness with regards to the mental distress he has experienced, and this lived experience brings a huge authenticity to the play.
Tell us a little more about the workshops across the UK that fed into MAD(E)?
Working with boys and young men’s groups in Oxford, London, Luton, Coventry, Sunderland, and Southampton, Artistic Director, Yasmin Sidhwa working alongside Kema Daley, a young workshop leader, rapper and spoken word artist who specialises in working with young people with mental health concerns and/ or what is seen as challenging behaviour.
He is an artist who the young people connect to, because he shares their concerns and secondly using the medium of spoken word opened the creative field for many of the young people. They understand it and it speaks to them as a way of expressing themselves. We involved them as the ‘experts,’ inputting ideas into the creation of the script through spoken word, drama, and discussion. The workshops involved an exploration of masculinity and the expectations society places on boys and young men throughout history and today, as well as exploring the possibilities of hope and resilience and ways of supporting oneself and finding the support that is needed.
Sean, the writer came to several of the workshops and ran elements of them too. This was also essential so that as the writer, he directly experienced the voices of young people as well as reading what they had written and could get more of a feel of what they were sharing. This alongside academic research on masculinity, through Oxford Brookes University’s Professor Joanne Begiato and NGO expertise from Joy Hibbins, CEO of the Suicide Crisis Centre, Gloucester, which deepened our knowledge, and provided further expertise.
What’s been the biggest challenge for you as a director with this play?
MAD(E) is a non-linear play, which means it moves in and out of the three lad’s stories into the wider impacts of society as a whole, so that the audience are required to piece the stories together like detectives rather than have them spelt out with a straightforward beginning, middle and end.
There are so many layers in MAD(E) and ensuring that the audience follow the overall arc of the play was the biggest challenge as a director. There are surreal moments in the play which Beira – a 500,000 year old shapeshifter and seer is able to shift the action to. The poetic language has so many layers that to enable the audience to grasp the meaning (and also because I love to make my work visual and physical) the play is full of movement and physicality – and it has been brilliant to work with Choreographer Marie-Louise Flexen on this.
What would you say to anyone thinking of booking to see MAD(E)?
Come along – I am 100% certain you will engage with it. The play has been in theatre venues, schools and universities and reaches all audience members. Although it is dealing with deep and dark subject matters, there is light and laughter within it, and ultimately it is about healing and connection. Bring your friends, colleagues and family – the conversation about mental health needs to be happening everywhere, to be the norm, to know we are there for each other and to be able to be honest about how we are feeling and know the support for each of us is out there. It is a play that needs to be seen.
As the writer, Sean says, “The idea of the play is the word made, not mad – it’s life, it’s stuff, events, it’s wounds, it’s trauma, poverty, it might be violence. Rather than putting up barriers, it’s finding connection. I think if lads cried more, everyone would be healthier.”
