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The Dark Things

The Dark Things is a play about the victim of an accident suffering post traumatic stress disorder whose career as an artist is first threatened by a downward spiral of guilt, and then turns into a huge commercial success with work commemorating the victims of the accident. The research task was to explore attitudes towards modern conceptual art. The play is innovative in not being set in any specific geographical location and incorporates the use of pre-recorded video footage and a central character with a major physical impairment. Research practice included investigation of the Serbian-American conceptual artist Marina Abramovic, reviewing the case files of five individuals suffering from ‘survivor guilt’ and interviewing a psychologist from the clinical psychology MA programme at NUI Galway, Ireland. The play was commissioned by the Traverse Theatre and premiered in October 2010. The Dark Things won Best New Play at the Critics Awards for Theatre in Scotland in 2011.