Sci-fi, thinks Mann, isn’t everyone’s favourite. It’s a really tough style for some people because there’s loud music, it’s in the dark and that can trigger kind of reactions of fear, because some people are just very scared of being in a dark space, feeling claustrophobic and, you know, at the very beginning of the play, that’s often when a couple of people might need to walk out.” You’re thrust in the dark and left to fend for yourself as an audience. “There are moments where Light is just something else: it’s a real visceral experience. And not everything in it is going to resonate politically.” The easiest statement to make about Light, then, is it’s hard to categorise. There’s an element of it that’s also fun: it’s not just a cold, hard, serious political. It’s also kind of a homage to dystopia, within the realms of film, novel, graphic novel as well. I want people to engage with this debate that Snowden’s kick-started.”īut, says Mann, “the piece is not just political. But I think in my sphere as an artist, I suppose I wanted to just do what I could do, and get it into the public sphere and get people thinking about it at the very least. And I’m not saying that Light is going to change the world. I just expected there to be a kind of outrage and an uproar or for something to happen – and very little happened. “And I was also really shocked about the response to it. They were a huge kind of catalyst that made me realise it’s important to explore that scene now. It wasn’t until the Snowden revelations happened that I realised that I really wanted to make it work, find a way to do that. Then I went to the Jacues Lecoq theatre school. “I’d had a nightmare about being under surveillance back in 2004 and failed countless times to try and write it. Mann says the idea had been cooking for a while. “I found that GCHQ had a codename for our metadata, and the codename was light,” explains Mann. It – and here comes its impressive ambition – tells its story wordlessly, with no lighting but LED strips and torches. Light is a dystopian sci-fi thriller and, inspired by the Snowden revelations and the ongoing debate over state surveillance, both a commentary on modern times and a warning of what the future could hold. It is indeed massive – in its concept, its scope of genres and its ambition. “A big amalgamation of thoughts and ideas and dreams,” says writer and director George Mann when I ask him the origin of Light, Theatre Ad Infinitum’s dystopian piece returning to London this year following a critically-acclaimed Edinburgh Fringe 2014 run.
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