In the dead of night, books are slipped from shelves. Scores are stolen and paintings removed. Any artist who creates “beyond the accepted limit” is punished: painters blinded, musicians deafened, each one robbed of the sense they rely on most for their work. This is the world, tucked into the Sussex coast, that Kay Dick imagines in They. First published in 1977 it was, until very recently, largely ignored. Newly republished, and soon to be staged, this rural English dystopia outlines the bone-deep urge to create.
“It takes a lot to dull that impulse,” says Sarah Frankcom, former director of Manchester’s Royal Exchange and the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (Lamda). In a rehearsal room in central London, empty but for a paper-strewn table, the director sits with actor Maxine Peake and movement director Imogen Knight. Together they are transforming Dick’s nightmarish tale into a live show. It is to be the inaugural performance of their new company, Maat (Music, Art, Activism and Theatre), one that holds art and activism at its heart.
