Interactive play looks at rape culture
Living in the United States inspired playwright Eleanor Bishop to create a work about a rape trial.
Jane Doe is an interactive play about a woman who goes to a party, gets drunk, blacks out and is raped.
Bishop said the show, part of the upcoming Nelson Arts Festival, reflected on the rape culture in communities around the world.
Actress Karin McCracken leads a public reading of a rape trial transcript, which Bishop wrote based on several rape trials from the US.
McCracken invites members of the audience to come on stage and read as witnesses and lawyers.
‘‘An audience pitching in can be really tricky,’’ Bishop said. ‘‘But in this situation, Karin is a really generous and wonderful host and facilitator of people.
‘‘No-one is asked to do any acting. People are generally willing to do [the reading].’’
Bishop said there would be pauses during the play where people could reflect on and digest what they had just heard, and respond live via their phones to a feed the whole audience could read.
She said the heavy and sad parts of the play were combined with frank and funny documentary footage from interviews she had done with young people from the US, Britain and New Zealand about consent, feminism and sexual empowerment. ‘‘It’s a good balance of humour and sadness.’’
Jane Doe is on at the Suter Theatre on October 20 and 21 at 8pm as part of the Nelson Arts Festival.