Tales from the Madhouse,

14th-16th March 2007,7.30pm
Assembly Rooms, Durham

For more details email our production team;

Sarah Mullins - s.l.mullins@durham.ac.uk

Graham Dowling - g.c.dowling@dur.ac.uk

Character Profiles

The Stories of the Six characters in the Madhouse.


THE CENTURION

A former Roman Centurion working as an army carpenter. His life revolves around order and discipline, and he takes pride in the fact that he always did his duty. In doing so he found himself presiding over the execution of a man he had met before, someone he is convinced didn’t deserve to die...

 

“He seemed like the real thing. Does that surprise you?”

 

THE SERVANT GIRL

 

Enjoying a laugh and joke with friends, the Servant Girl’s curiosity and love for gossip is excited when she finds herself in the middle of the action at one of the most controversial trials within living memory. Then she finds herself standing before the prisoner in question, and the look in his eyes is something she cannot forget...

 

“It was like his voice was strumming at my soul, and it said ‘You are beautiful, in my eyes, you are precious.’”

 

THE BEST FRIEND

 

sucked into the inner circle of an unlikely band of followers of a Rabbi who is causing a stir throughout the Jewish world. Whilst he harbours contempt for many of the group he is convinced the man at the centre of it all is the answer to his political dreams...

 

“he threw a life line into the centre of my being, and I swallowed it, hook, line, sinker, fishing rod, fisher man and fishing boat."

 

THE RICH MAN

 

An ageing philosopher who enjoys the finer things in life, good food, a glass of wine, recalls an encounter from his youth with an inspirational teacher who offers him the world  - but asks in return for more than the rich man is willing to give...

 

“After a time alone, you slowly come to realise the most important truth of all. That the world is an illusion, and I am all there is!”

 

THE MOURNER

 

A widow whose life is characterised by joy followed by tragedy, she harbours bitterness and grief against the man who captured her imagination with his teachings until she loses the one thing most precious to her...

 

“We saw things. I think we saw love”

 

THE THIEF

 

“A thief, a cheat, a confidence trickster” and by his own admission the best there is, acquiring huge amounts of wealth—until he is caught out. And as the bubble bursts he finds himself facing the end, and encounters another man condemned to die alongside him, but who is completely different from any other criminal mind he has ever met...

 

“he could do the most frightening things and I have no idea how he did it. “