Wrest

In Development

“It was a penetrating, relentless, unalterable thing, to be his mother, my life ending and beginning at once.” Cheryl Strayed

In a bus stop late at night, at the scene of a crime, a woman splits in two. Her life ending and beginning at once. In the witching-hour, when monsters are born, an uncanny doppelgänger emerges.

Introduced as a surreal, cinematic crime mystery, WREST lays bare the realities underlying the mundanity of early motherhood. In a sleep deprived state, in the stretch from dusk to dawn, a mother watches herself fracture and split - her body no longer her own. Stalked by detectives seeking answers, the doppelgänger hunts visions of her original self, determined to rebuild.

This show explodes the tropes and traditions of motherhood in myth, film, horror, art history, and literature. A ferociously physical collision of theatre, dance and hyper-real cinematic imagery. WREST combines Red Leap’s transformative approach to visual storytelling with contemporary dance and Wushu choreography.

Artistic Director Ella Becroft and choreographer Tor Colombus co-direct this new work, with story development by writer/filmmaker Claire van Beek. Designed by Rachel Marlow and Eden Mulholland, with Associate Artist Yin-Chi Lee as Assistant Director and Wushu choreographer.

"I had gone, but I didn’t know where, or if I would return. I thought early motherhood would be gentle, beatific, pacific, tranquil: bathed in a soft light. But actually it was hardcore, edge, gnarly. It wasn’t pale pink; it was brown of shit and red of blood. And it was the most political experience of my life, rife with conflict, domination, drama, struggle and power." Lucy Jones