I am a chemist, so let’s start here. The second law of thermodynamics states that entropy always increases with time. In other words, disorder increases over time. Sooner or later everything falls apart.
I am an artist, so let’s go here. I love the movement between order and disorder. It brings me closer to the true essence of life. This is what made me fall in love with theatre. For me, theatre is the epitome of taking disorder and ordering it into meaning that evokes, inspires and transforms. Just writing this sentence electrifies me.
The last two years have been a social entropic phenomenon. Everything feels like it was evolving away from what we have always known. Many of us are used to strict and orderly routines – wake up at 6am, shower, coffee, toast, brush teeth, get dressed, Central Line, work, lunch, work some more, a well deserved pint, sleep and do it all over again the next day. A pretty average play on the stage of life.
For me, since 2018 I have also been developing my new show called The Night Woman, first at Arcola Theatre’s performance lab, followed by an artistic residency at Theatre Deli. The show was due to premiere on the 8th week of VAULT Festival 2020. That same week which is now titled ‘The Lost Week’ because everything changed. A global pandemic. A dramatic twist and everything was never the same again. .
The world was still trudging along and George Floyd, in front of all of us, moved from a low entropic state (a beautifully configured and ordered human being with a soul) into the highest possible entropic state (a beautiful configured human without a soul) and for a lot of us, our world fell apart.
I fell apart. And the only thing I could do, locked in my small room, was to try, however futile it might be, to make order and try to put on a show somehow. The Night Woman, which is (finally) premiering at The Other Palace on 11th March, is a show I wrote about darkness, black womanhood and healing in response to some personal difficult chaotic times I was going through a while ago, but also the difficult chaotic experiences I was seeing many other people go through.
Then the last two years happened and The Night Woman became more relevant than ever. Making this show was met with a bombardment of disappointment left, right and centre. Although, in the midst of the chaos of 2021, I was able to continue exploring the show through the support of the Barbican’s Open Lab programme. But the obstacles were never-ending. The lab’s sharing couldn’t take place due to the restrictions at the time. More cancellations followed, including the cancellation of VAULT Festival 2022, where I was delighted to have been selected and programmed as one of the VAULT FIVE. Nothing was as it was supposed to be. Disorder was everywhere.
Cue the artists, the directors, the designers, the producers, the stage managers, the Night Women and the Night Folx. The magicians, the people who create order from disorder. I know there are many artists out there who are making magic, moulding disorder and chaos into beautiful things. I salute them all because when the world falls apart, scientists try to understand why but the artists put it back together. The dance between order and disorder is electrifying. I hope you are inspired. If you are not, take my advice and spend some time in a theatre.
The Night Woman plays from 11-13 March . Come and spend some time with us at The Other Palace: https://theotherpalace.co.uk/the-night-woman/
Julene Robinson
MA in Theatre, Rose Bruford College, Kent.
BSc in Pure and Environmental Chemistry, University of the West Indies, Jamaica
