Coming on the back of two successful theatre productions in 2019 in Scalped and Sweet Like Chocolate Boy, independent multidisciplinary arts duo Initiative.DKF are excited to announce Fragments Of A Complicated Mind as their first production of 2020, in association with Theatre503.
Written and directed by award-winning multidisciplinary artist, performer, playwright, and artistic director Damilola DK Fashola, who also stars in the theatre piece, Fragments Of A Complicated Mind is a darkly funny and masterfully crafted vignette play, which explores the whacky, obscene and unspoken thoughts of a complex mind. Interrogating race, religion, sex and cultural expectations, with witty word play steeped in shade and satire. Birthed in an anarchic blend of storytelling and razor sharp switches from direct address, to full on dance and poetry.
Delivered through a raw and truthful performance style, Fragments Of A Complicated Mind uses a very distinctive choreo-poetic blend of spoken word, direct address, physical theatre, and razor sharp switches to explore heavy issues, which are too often left unspoken within our society as a whole.
Fashola leads an exciting cast of black British theatre and film rising stars, including Effie Ansah (Five O Fresh, Theatre503; Measure For Measure, Donmar), Antonia Layiwola (Ilé La Wà, National Tour; Teleportation, The Bunker), Luke Wilson (Scottsboro Boys, Ghost The Musical), and Luke Elliot (Kissing Rebellion, Into The Unknown, Macbeth), who will be bringing Fragments Of A Complicated Mind to life for two weeks, from January 21 to February 1, 2020 at the illustrious Theatre503 in London.
Speaking about what Fragments Of A Complicated Mind is all about, Damilola DK Fashola says, “the play is about stereotypes and cultural pressures, what you are supposed to be like as a black girl, as a writer. It is about finding yourself through your thoughts. It’s therapy, it’s about rationalising your thoughts and if your thoughts have to be rationalised? Experiencing the full breadth of your mind with all of its conflicting thoughts through the mind of a black female writer in the arts industry. I want the audience to think differently, leaving having dismantled some of their stereotypes about women, about black women, about what theatre can be, what it should look like, what it’s supposed to look like on black bodies”.
