A love story about our love of stories.

"And there is another planet, like ours. Very close by. It’s different from our planet in only one way, but – you know. One difference can trigger many more. They can’t see the sky, on that planet. Because their atmosphere is like a mirror. The sun, the clouds, the stars – they’ve forgotten that such things exist. They look into the sky and see only themselves and the things they’ve made. And so everything in their world can easily be understood. They have no artists.  All they want is to be safe and comfortable. They fatten themselves on poison food. And when they look into the sky, they are struck dumb. By the greatness of their works."

At the height of the Cold War, dissident writer Gavriil is detained in a Soviet mental prison for protesting against the government.

His only escape is the prison library, a treasure store of banned literature available to the patients, but off-limits to the staff. His interrogator, Yurchak, offers to protect him from torture in exchange for sharing the forbidden stories...

A love story about our love of stories, Silent Planet is a passionate and poetic fable about the power of literature in a world in which the wrong words can get you killed.

Silent Planet is playwright Eve Leigh’s first full length play.

Silent Planet is published by Oberon Books [buy now]

DATES

25 Nov - 20 Dec 2014

"As a first play, it reveals unusual maturity" 

Michael Billington, The Guardian

CREATIVE TEAM

Eve Leigh

Writer

Tom Mansfield

Director

Petra Hjortsberg

Designer

Rachel Bottomley

Lighting Designer

Duncan Grimley

Sound Designer

Jennifer Jackson

Movement Director

Georgia Fleury Reynolds

Casting Director

Verena Prandstaetter

Stage Manager

Rianna Dearden

Producer

Daniel Bailey

Assistant Director