description

Like Nighthawks (1985) and The Set-up (1985) before it, The Day that Serenity Returned to the Ground began as a straightforward piece of genre deconstruction in which the shapes and gestures of a narrative are replayed and turned into a kind of minimal choreography.

At the centre of the piece is a science fiction story about the return of a group of cosmonauts to Earth. Presenting the shapes or outlines of the narrative rather than its details, The Day that Serenity… moves through the initial genre material towards other strands of content as the piece unfolds into an explicitly poetic text.

The performers in this piece speak through microphones, marking Forced Entertainment’s return to using spoken text from the stage. The setting for the piece is a white polythene construction — an isolation chamber — in which the performers are further divided from the audience by a wall of metal grilles.

© Forced Entertainment 1986. Theatre performance.

Credits

Conceived and devised by the company
Performers: Robin Arthur, Huw Chadbourn, Tim Etchells, Cathy Naden
Direction: Susie Williams, Tim Etchells, Richard Lowdon
Text: Tim Etchells
Design: Richard Lowdon, Huw Chadbourn
Lighting Design: Richard Lowdon
Soundtrack: John Avery

Commissioned by the Zap Club, Brighton.