In Floods
In 2018 I went twice back to a place I hadn’t visited in a long time for two almost identical funerals 4 weeks apart. The deep strangeness and the equally deep familiarity of those situations haunted me, made me laugh and made me curious.
In Floods uses thinking, writing and talking from those experiences (around them, through them and on tangents from them). It also uses a TV script, bright light, total darkness, impossible actions and crying to think about control, release, pleasure, out of body experiences, doubles, connection, queer grief and overflow.
In Floods is a new show by Greg Wohead that takes the form of a live screenplay reading in which Greg fictionalises himself. Drawing from an interest in the act of crying and his experience returning to rural America for his grandparents’ back-to-back funerals, he leans into TV tropes, plays fast and loose with the truth and deals recklessly with his memories.
With In Floods, Greg asks himself: can you go home again and who are you when you get there? What makes us, breaks us or sustains us as life gets more and more absurd? The responses to these questions play out through blinding light, total darkness, wild anecdotes, out of body experiences and lumps in the throat.
"Crying, dying, giving birth and orgasming all started to become about one another. Moments in which you are faced with an other. An-other body, an-other face, an-other form of existence or non-existence; that which is not you; and yet which becomes, weirdly, of you as you slip away from yourself, into darkness."
Concept and performance Greg Wohead
Dramaturgy Charlie Ashwell
Technical direction Helen Mugridge and Sorcha Stott-Strzala
Lighting design Marty Langthorne
Sound design Yas Clarke
Scenic and costume design Tim Spooner
Magic consultants Augusto Corrieri and Tim Bromage
Producer Lucy Jackson
Assistant Producer, Teatro do Bairro Alto Mariana Sá Marques
Trailer and filming Eleanor Sikorski
Promo photos Rui Palma
Production photos Bruno Simão
With thanks to Tanuja Amarasuriya who contributed to the R&D stages of In Floods, and Cão Solteiro.
In Floods is co-commissioned by Teatro do Bairro Alto, Theatre in the Mill, Shoreditch Town Hall and Cambridge Junction with additional support from GIFT, artsdepot and Soho Theatre. Supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England.