Gecko’s ‘Institute’ offers visceral insight into human compassion

“When the time comes, will anyone really care?”

That is a question posed by Gecko’s Institute, the latest piece of physical theatre to be performed at HOME, Manchester.

A backdrop of filing cabinets seems so simplistic as the play begins, for an issue as complex as mental health and care, but when the performance starts, the inconspicuous set transforms into an integral supplement to the story.

The cabinets hold reams of memories, both haunting and hilarious, which encapsulate the cyclical pattern of madness which leaps out of the actors during their frequent spasmodic tics.

The combination of acrobatics, dance and acting portrays care’s role in modern society, although artistic director, Amit Lahar, is keen to move away from the idea that the performance is rooted in dance.

Gecko’s Lahar said: “Institute is an endeavour with real integrity about an inner language of wanting to feel something or control a situation, or wanting to connect with something.

“[It] is driven by Gecko’s desire to explore complexities in human nature; our impulse to care and our complete reliance on one another.

“We’ve created a very intimate, funny and revealing experience in Gecko’s physical, honest and generous style.”

Throughout the production, the audience is continually thrust into a state of displacement, grasping at the intangible and shape-shifting character portrayed by Francois Testory, who speaks only in French.

The French language and lack of coherent speech port Lahar added: “We wanted to encourage the audience to come to meet us.

“It doesn’t become a completely cerebral relationship, one that words are that only way we are eliciting meaning between each other, and therefore you embark on a different emotional level with the stage and the performers.

“You’re looking at their bodies. There is the condiment of the odd word that gives it flavour.”

The physical theatre helps to portray the very sacred friendship between two men, both of whom work in the financial sector under intense pressures to hit targets.

However, through the contortionist movements of the characters, portrayed by Lahar and Ryen Perkins-Gangnes, a struggle with masculinity and mental health issues is battled with in an intense yet sensitive way.

For this performance, Gecko collaborated with mental health charity, Suffolk Mind to work on the project, supported by a Wellcome Trust award.

Institute does not stand alone as simply a performance, but strives to explore thoroughly the issues of mental wellbeing explored in the piece.

As part of this project, four strands develop following the performance; something to talk about, something to read, someone to talk to and something to do.

Audience members are given a booklet which gives information about the project as a whole, and invited to take part in a post-show discussion with a representative from Mind and a self-harm support service.

After the performance, in the Gecko corner, people can visit a local mental health representative to discuss how it has affected them.

At each venue Gecko will lead a free three and half hour-long theatre-based workshop in which they introduce, explore and discuss these ideas in relation to Institute, the characters and themselves.

Willing participants were also asked to fill in a voluntary questionnaire which would aid research by Suffolk Mind in to the effect of Institute on their own perceptions of mental health.

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