The Daisy Chain
Thursday 2nd & Friday 3rd August, 21.00 – 22.00
Gestalt Opera
Music: Toby Young
Words: Thomas Conroy
Music Director: Stephen Craigen
Director: Ruth Mariner
Set Design: Jayne O’Hanlon
A radical re-envisioning of the Rumpelstiltskin tale, fusing courtly love, psychotherapy and sadomasochism.
When a stoic marriage counselor is tasked with curing the delusions of the Royal bride Daisy, she discovers a darker side to the nuptials that challenges the very foundations of her practice. Ruined by the fear that her first born heir will be abducted by an aberrant cave-dwelling goblin, Daisy’s delusions are fantastical, yet firmly rooted in the fissures found when reality shatters love’s great dream: her husband is a bastard. Or at least, this was the initial interpretation. As the therapist begins to find Daisy’s tales more compelling, she becomes trapped in a triangle between guarding the safety of the Princess, the safety of the baby, and exposing the Prince as a psychotic tyrant and cause of Daisy’s pain. However, for some pain is pleasure, and as the difference between reality and fantasy starts to become more and more obscure, the therapist has to confront the possibility of an incredible truth: that Daisy’s delusions aren’t as intangible as they first appear.
