The Bell Jar
From the novel by Sylvia Plath
Thrust / Apple Core Festival
January 2013
Writer / Dramaturg
Director
Sound designer
-
Ravensfield Theatre
22–23 January 2013 -
Original text
Sylvia PlathDirectors
William Bowden & Bruce AdamsCast
Zakk Hein, Dan Henry, Ester Mangas Fernandez, Freya Martin, Henry Martin, Tika Mu’tamir, Sophie Napleton, Charlotte Trotter, Harriet Wakefield, Rachel WoodSet designer
Charlotte TrotterVideo designer
Zakk HeinLighting designer
Ryan FunnellCostume designer
Lizzy GethingsSound designer
Bruce AdamsStage managers
Zoë Sofair & Vicky O’NeillASM
Henry Martin -
“This dramatisation of Plath’s great novel has great imagination and poignancy.” Julia Pascal
“Near-mastery of form.” Nick Herrett
“I felt wise and cynical as all hell.”
Esther Greenwood is trapped underneath a bell jar. Separated from the real world by layer upon layer of crushing expectation, she gives an account of her descent into a madness which threatens to consume her whole.
Thrust’s adaptation of Sylvia Plath’s only novel is an ambitious intermedial production combining live video, performance and sound production to realise Plath’s dense study of a mind unravelling.
Adapted from the original text and co-directed by Bruce Adams for Thrust and Apple Core Festival at Middlesex University.
Production photography by Will Bowden
