''The Wonderful World of Dissocia'' is a play written and directed by

Anthony Neilson Anthony Neilson (born 1967, Edinburgh) is a Scottish playwright and director. He is known for his collaborative way of writing and workshopping his plays. Much of his work is characterised by the exploration of sex and violence. Neilson has bee ...

about a young woman suffering from

dissociative disorder Dissociative disorders (DD) are conditions that involve disruptions or breakdowns of memory, awareness, identity, or perception. People with dissociative disorders use dissociation as a defense mechanism, pathologically and involuntarily. The i ...

. The idea was originally workshopped with a group of students at

LAMDA LaMDA, which stands for Language Model for Dialogue Applications, is a family of conversational neural language models developed by Google. The first generation was announced during the 2021 Google I/O keynote, while the second generation was a ...

in 2002 but was later re-written and produced for the Glasgow's Tron Theatre at the

Edinburgh International Festival The Edinburgh International Festival is an annual arts festival in Edinburgh, Scotland, spread over the final three weeks in August. Notable figures from the international world of music (especially classical music) and the performing arts are i ...

in 2004. The play won Neilson the 2004-5

CATS The cat (''Felis catus'') is a domestic species of small carnivorous mammal. It is the only domesticated species in the family Felidae and is commonly referred to as the domestic cat or house cat to distinguish it from the wild members of t ...

award for Best New Play and the production secured Best Director award for Neilsen, Best Actress award for Christine Entwisle (Lisa) and Best Design for

Miriam Buether Miriam Buether is a German stage designer who primarily works in London theatre. She was born in Germany and studied stage design at Central Saint Martin’s College of Art and Design in London and costume design at the Akademie für Kostüm Des ...

. In December 2009 '' The List'' magazine included the work in its "Best of a Decade" compilation. It toured England in 2007, making its

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

debut at the

Royal Court Theatre The Royal Court Theatre, at different times known as the Court Theatre, the New Chelsea Theatre, and the Belgravia Theatre, is a non-commercial West End theatre in Sloane Square, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, Englan ...

in March 2007. The United States première was at the

Profiles Theater Profile or profiles may refer to: Art, entertainment and media Music * ''Profile'' (Jan Akkerman album), 1973 * ''Profile'' (Githead album), 2005 * ''Profile'' (Pat Donohue album), 2005 * ''Profile'' (Duke Pearson album), 1959 * '' ''Profi ...

, North Broadway Street, Chicago, on 26 March 2009. The

Sydney Theatre Company Sydney Theatre Company (STC) is an Australian theatre company based in Sydney, New South Wales. The company performs in The Wharf Theatre at Dawes Point in The Rocks area of Sydney, as well as the Roslyn Packer Theatre (formerly Sydney Thea ...

mounted a production at

The Wharf Theatre The Wharf Theatre is a theatre in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. This theatre is part of the Sydney Theatre Company and located on Pier 4/5 of the former Sydney port facility in Walsh Bay at Dawes Point. History In 1829, the first je ...

, Sydney, Australia, on 18 April 2009. The Latin American première was at Mediterránea Café Teatro, Buenos Aires, Argentina, on 20 March 2015. A new London production starring

Leah Harvey Leah Harvey (born around 1993) is a British actor. They are known for their role as Salvor Hardin in the 2021 Apple TV+ series ''Foundation'', which earned them a BAFTA nomination. On stage, they starred as Hortense in a 2019 National Theatre ...

premiered at

Theatre Royal Stratford East The Theatre Royal Stratford East is a 460 seat Victorian producing theatre in Stratford in the London Borough of Newham. Since 1953, it has been the home of the Theatre Workshop company, famously associated with director Joan Littlewood, whose ...

in 2022.

Theme

The play is in two contrasting acts, with the first a vivid recreation of Lisa's dream-like imaginary life, "full of colour and fun", and the second a bleak, black-and-white presentation of the hospital ward in which she is receiving treatment; because of the contrast we see the prospect of Lisa's return to wellness as rather unattractive. In this way the play attempts to give the audience a notion of how the condition affects the sufferer and offers an alternative view of conventional treatments.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wonderful World of Dissocia 2002 plays