Have I Returned? opens Sunday 18th October at the Golden Goose Theatre, blending storytelling techniques to explore a sense of belonging. Learn more about what you can expect:
1.Where did the idea for HAVE I RETURNED? come from?
I don’t think there was one big moment where the idea suddenly came to me. It was more from little things I’d noticed in everyday life.
Sometimes people see one part of something, make up their mind about it, and then become completely convinced that they’re right — even when they don’t know the full story. I find that really interesting. To me, that’s a kind of blindness as well. Not physically being blind, obviously, but being so sure of what you see or what you believe that you stop questioning it.
And I don’t think it’s just something “other people” do. We all do it sometimes. We make assumptions, we follow other people, we see what we want to see.
That’s really where HAVE I RETURNED? started. I wanted to play with that idea of blindness in everyday life — how much can we actually trust what we see? Are we ever seeing the whole picture? And when the truth is right in front of us, do we actually have the courage to look at it?
2.Is the play ultimately about physical blindness or the things we fail to see emotionally and socially?
Definitely more the second one. Physical blindness is more like the way into the story.
There’s something quite ironic about the idea that sometimes people who can see perfectly well can actually be the most blind. Because we have eyes, we trust them. We think, “I saw it, so I know what happened.” But seeing something and understanding it are two completely different things.
And that’s something I wanted to explore with Lucian. When he’s blind, he has to listen, touch, feel and really pay attention to the world around him. But when he can finally see, he starts trusting his eyes almost too much.
I think that happens socially as well. We make assumptions. We follow the crowd. We judge people. We change sides. Sometimes we only see what we want to see.
So yes, the play is about blindness, but for me physical blindness is only one part of it. The bigger question is: just because we can see, does that mean we’re actually seeing?
3.What made expressionist theatre the right form for this story?
For me, it’s the subjectivity of expressionism that makes it work.
I think it would be quite difficult — and probably a bit dishonest — for me to say, “Right, this is exactly what being blind feels like. Now understand it.”I’m more interested in giving the audience their own experience. This is your world. What you see onstage is what you get. And then we start playing with that.
Through the actors’ bodies, masks, costume, sound and lighting, we can change the way the audience sees the stage. So I don’t necessarily need the audience to literally see through Lucian’s eyes. I want to use their own perspective to bring them a little bit closer to his.
That’s what I really like about expressionism. The stage doesn’t have to show us what the world literally looks like. It can show us what the world feels like.
4.Lighting plays an active role in the narrative. How did you approach designing this?
The lighting really grew out of the way Lucian understands colour. Before he has ever seen it, colour is almost emotional or sensory to him. Red is warm. Blue is cold. He builds an idea of colour from touch, sound, temperature and what other people have told him.
Then, once he can see, those meanings start changing. Blue can be cold, but it can also be other things.
That became really interesting to me when thinking about lighting. I don’t necessarily want the lighting to say, “This is realistically what this place looks like.” Sometimes I want it to say, “This is what this moment feels like to Lucian.”
So colour and light become part of his emotional journey. As his understanding of the world changes, the meaning of those colours can change with him.
5.What would you like audiences to take away from the production?
I don’t really want to tell the audience what they should take away from it. I’d rather they leave with a few questions.
Why is it that Lucian can sometimes see things more clearly when he’s blind, but once he opens his eyes, he starts missing what’s actually in front of him?
Is a blind person’s world really just darkness?
And for those of us who can see — how much do we actually see?
I think if people leave the theatre still thinking about those questions, then I’m happy.
6.What has been the most enjoyable part about creating HAVE I RETURNED?
Compared with my last show, ___ in Loss, what I’ve enjoyed most about this one has been less about the plot and more about finding ways to physically express what’s going on inside someone’s head.A lot of the time in rehearsals we’ll have an idea and then ask: is that movement actually clear? Will the audience understand what we mean? Can we show this without having a character just stand there and explain it?
That’s probably been my favourite part.
There have also been quite a few moments where the team and I have had completely different ideas about how something should work — how we show Lucian’s perspective, how the audience should read a moment, or whether something should come through movement, costume, lighting or performance.
But I actually really enjoy those little clashes. Someone sees something one way, someone else sees it completely differently, and then we have to try it physically and work out what actually communicates.
Which is quite funny, really, because that’s basically what the whole play is about — different people looking at the same thing and seeing something completely different.
Have I Returned? opens Sunday 18th October at the Golden Goose Theatre. Many thanks to Alan Ho for answering our questions. Book your tickets here!
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