Wellcome Trust and Spare Typre theatre co-produce and epic tale that combines art, science and the the people behind one of the most important studies of cognitive ageing. Naima Khan interviews director Arti Prashar.
Along with the likes of Analogue Productions, Spare Tyre theatre company have recently set out to investigate the people behind scientific procedure. As with Analogue’s 2401 Objects which looked at Henry Molaison, the man whose brain was dissected live online in 2009, Spare Tyre, in a co-production with Wellcome Trust, bring to life the people involved in the Lothian Birth Cohort 1936.
The project took a group of Lothian school children born in 1936 and measured their intelligence at age 11 as part of something tactfully called the Scottish Mental Survey of 1947. The surviving members of the cohort (there were originally 1091 participants involved) then took the same tests aged 71 in order to measure their cognitive ageing.
There are a lot of intriguing aspects to a play that addresses a scientific experiment. Particularly one in which the original scientists working with the children in the late ’40s knew they wouldn’t be around for the next part of the study in 2006 and the scientists working on the project most recently have at their disposal radically advanced ways of measuring cognitive ageing than their ’40s counterparts.
Thankfully, director Arti Prashar took some time to answer my questions about Still Life Dreaming and she also noted the role of the scientists in the play: “When Pete Lawson (writer) and I first talked about the script we thought the most interesting characters would be the subjects of the study,” she writes, “but when we went up to Edinburgh to meet the scientists involved, we became interested in the scientists themselves. They were hugely motivated in their work and we were fascinated by the data they had found, and also by them as people. Who are they? And what are they motivated by? So the play looks at two of the participants, one sitting the test aged 11, and one sitting the test aged 71 and it explores the scientists involved in the study such as Professor Ian Deary, and those in the study’s history: Andrew Carnegie and Henry Wellcome himself.”
Where we might imagine a measured, planned procedure in place, Prashar found that scientific study can be a story in its own right, full of unexpected twists and turns. “We were interested in the chance connections between one study and another,” she explains, “and between individuals, be they subjects or scientists.”
These connections are ingrained in the merger of theatre and science and the possibilities that come with the combination. “Our research made me appreciate how science and art behave in similar ways,” explains Arti: “both move from an initial idea, to taking risks and developing ideas in creative ways. Theatre can provide an accessible porthole into the science world, by representing the human stories behind scientific studies.” Add to that Spare Tyre’s characteristic multi-sensory performances, which make theatre “not only accessible but also enhanced artistically for all audiences”, and works in tandem with their aim in this production to “show theatre audiences the relevance of a study to their lives”.
Uniquely, this particular scientific project allows a huge amount of time between studies. The cognitive development and degeneration it makes room for results in a monumental tale. Its scale forms the basis of what the company want to convey. “We want the audiences to understand the epic nature of the story we are telling,” Arti resolves. “The tale of how the work of enlightened individuals many years ago has impacted upon the lives of thousands of people, and what has happened in between. How everything is connected from education to science to art.”
Still Life Dreaming runs from 15th – 19th August at Pleasance Courtyard, Forth, Edinburgh as part of Wellcome Trust’s 75th Anniversary Summer Series.
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