There’s a deep-seated need in people to find a connection. After all, isn't that precisely why go to the theatre in the first place? When Prophecy Fails, the new piece by Groupwork, performed at the Manipulate Festival, explores concepts of connection and the very human need people have to form groups of like-minded individuals with even the strangest of tethers between them.
The piece is adapted, by writer Lewis den Hertog, from When Prophecy Fails: A Social and Psychological Study of a Modern Group that Predicted the Destruction of the World by Leon Festinger, Henry Riecken and Stanley Schachter, a 1956 book detailing a semi-covert social psychology study performed on a small American doomsday cult calling themselves ‘The Seekers’. The book, although principally a scientific text, still tells a compelling narrative and delves deep into explorations of aspects of Cognitive Dissonance, which, in very simplified layman’s terms, is the mental situation where people faced with proof that their beliefs are a lie choose to double down on them instead of accepting they were wrong.
Much as with their excellent previous work, The Afflicted, Groupwork has opted to take an expressive and at times hyper-realistic approach to the telling of this story. Turning it into a more subjective and at times hypnotic fusion of dance, movement, projected images and text, surrounding the brief but important moments of more conventional theatrical performances. Co-Directors Vicki Manderson and Finn den Hertog have transformed the somewhat dry text of the book into a strangely whimsical and slightly arch combination of physical theatre, punctuated and accented with scenes of 1950s American domesticity loomed over by a large projector screen that shifts with various images and scenes.
The piece’s story, such as it is, follows Chicagoan housewife Marian Keech (Amy Kennedy), who discovers a latent talent for automatic writing. This practice of scribbling words without conscious effort leads her to believe she is a conduit for beings beyond Earth, and after penning a fatalistic prediction, she begins to draw more and more followers into her group, including a doctor and his wife, who all subscribe to the belief that the world is soon coming to an end. This is followed by the observing scientists who watch from the sidelines, often typing out in syncopated beats on typewriters along with the music and describing events.
The play invests a large quantity of time detailing the build-up of the cult and the beliefs, peppering scenes with snippets of interview voice-over and images of the automatic writing as the stories of the denizens of Planet Clarion and the being Sananda are wound ever deeper and more complicated. It’s necessary, and quite intriguing, if at a little bit too vague and obtuse early on, as the personalities, the timeline and the physical movements don’t quite gel into a clear image as perfectly as they could. It would also be fair to say that this is perhaps because that section goes on a little too long, before the more serious latter half of the play starts to ramp up tension and unease.
It’s worth observing, however, that despite the occasionally slightly offbeat angle that is taken, as well as the comedic tinge that much of the first half of the play is imbued with, there is no malice to it. This is a piece that is never tinged with scorn or judgement but rather a kindness and empathy, which is echoed in the words of the embedded scientists who are studying the group. There’s no attempt to ridicule the group for their larger-than-life views or their need to cling to prophecy and frantically scribbled words and voices recorded during moments of pathological phenomenon.
That’s also a fitting mark of the humanity of the piece that the central pivot point and one of the highlights of the play isn’t some calamity or shock revelation. It’s a moment of delightful humour, as the cast move in slow motion through a scene of slightly exaggerated domesticity in Keech’s living room set to an old church song. It's also a moment of sweet release of tension, as those not familiar with the situation have no idea if this is all spinning towards a resolution that’s comedic or tragic.
It’s a far more complex and challenging piece of artistry from Groupwork than their previous offering, one that asks more from the audience, but also offers far more in terms of interpretation. It’s an exploration of the need that humans have to believe there is something or someone out there with an answer and the unwillingness of people to throw that hope away, even in the face of the starkest proof. Just as Festinger, Riecken and Schachter looked on and wrote without judgement, Groupwork has done likewise, and in doing so built a bridge and a tether across time and space itself.