On Ego - a recommendation

On Ego - TFTV

Every now and again, you get to see a play that feels like a whole thing. On Ego was the first time I've seen this at the University of York. There's no point in breaking it down and ranking or judging the various elements that make it theatre, you just have to let yourself watch it. But there is something within this piece that makes you leave feeling very different from when you walked in.

I think it is the way that the production takes something big and scary and makes it seem accessible; it gives the audience an entry point into a subject that we all know everything and nothing about. From the opening monologue to the closing image, everything that happens works towards the premise of the play: who, or what, are we?

I don't feel any closer to an answer, except that maybe my 'ego' has moved from my chest to my head and this play really did give me the first good headache I've had in a while. I felt both empty and alive. There was no cliched "LIVE LIFE TO THE FULL" or "YOU ONLY HAVE ONE LIFE", just that niggling thought, who am I? 

IF you choose not to heed this warning and don't run to TFTV right now and queue up until someone shows up on Saturday and sells you a ticket, then you will probably miss out on that rare thing, a student piece that really is interested in bringing something new (or at least contemporary) to theatre right now. Like RIGHT NOW. I don't know what people think anymore about bundle theories or ego theories or whatever else science has decided exists BUT why not go and let yourself be shown a different way of thinking, a different avenue into yourself?

This isn't the perfect production. But On Ego tells you that you are both unique and un-unique; both here and there; simultaneously conscious and unconscious. I left having learnt something, having felt something and wanting to do something. I'd say you can't ask much more from theatre.

On Ego

Directors: Jason Ryall and Lauren Moakes
Producer: Katie Barclay
Movement Director: Amy Warren
Actors: Oliver-Patrick Henn, Yoshika Colwell, Harry Whittaker
Filming: Tom Leatherbarrow
Marketing: Rose Copland-Mann
Sound designer: Scott Hurley
Lighting: Ella Dixon