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Press release

From the company that created Frankenstein, La Petite Mort and Medea comes a new production: the greatest story never told: the story of Mary, mother of Jesus.

But did Mary, so rarely mentioned in the Gospels, and insignificant in her own lifetime until an angel allegedly appeared to her in a dream, really exist? Or is she one of history’s hallucinations? And if she did exist, is she anything like our idea of her?

Collisions’ Mary is a dreamer, a refugee, a traveller discovering herself and the world, as well as being a teenage wife and mother.
The telling of this tale ranges from breathless action and comedy – breakneck escapes from Herod’s head-hunters and a headlong pursuit of her maverick, runaway son – to timeless humanity and poignancy, evoking an exodus through dream-filled deserts.

Mary's urgent and very human journey begins in her sleep and is a movement through stations of silence and doubt.

Along the way she encounters a grotesque gatekeeper, the archangel Gabriel, assassins, magicians from the East and her own mad aunt, all the time wondering where the child that she carries really came from.
 
The show imagines the experiences of Mary’s life in full and pushes the drama to its limit, from her comic self-absorption as an awkward young girl who spends her time talking to angels, through the pain of pregnancy and the strangeness of giving birth to a force that she cannot control.
 
While placing Mary firmly within the psychic landscape of the middle-east, by turns sensual and stark, the piece is never didactic and allows the audience to draw its own spiritual conclusions from the story, whilst encouraging empathy with extreme human experiences.
 
The landscape is brought to life through  bold, stylish lighting design  married with rhythmic, evocative text, a new soundscape and an imaginative physical expression.
 
In its initial tour the show has proved popular with audiences  whether christian or non-christian, they have been charmed by a dramatic tale that has modern political relevance and an appeal both intimate and epic. 
 
Written By Damian Wright ( writer from the fringe first award nominated company Perilum)
Music and Lighting design by double  award winning composer Jules Deering
Performed and co directed by Tanushka Marah
Co-directed by Denise Evans
Co- devised by Luan Blake and Sarah Leaver

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