World premiere of Ron Elisha's THE SOUL OF WITTGENSTEIN
By: Edward Baker Jul. 07, 2016
THE SOUL OF WITTGENSTEIN offers a fictional account of one of the finest philosophers of the 20th century, Ludwig Wittgenstein, whilst he was a volunteer hospital porter at Guy's Hospital during World War Two. Ron Elisha's play premieres at King's Head Theatre later this month.
1941. Guy's Hospital, London. A battered copy of War and Peace. An illiterate Cockney dying of cancer and a philosopher handing out pills. Their world is determined by these facts. But is it defined by them? Written by Ron Elisha, winner of four Australian Writers' Guild Awards, THE SOUL OF WITTGENSTEIN a pertinent, engrossing, confrontational, yet tender, new play.
Directed by award-winning Dave Spencer, it asks what happens when we open up, when we put aside our differences, and when we force ourselves to feel. If a dying man questioned what you were doing with your life, how would you answer? And would it be something that you were willing to admit?
Playwright Ron Elisha said: "We think of Ludwig Wittgenstein (if we think of him at all) as one of the great geniuses of the 20th century - a philosopher, linguist and logician without peer. We do not think of him as a humble porter at Guy's Hospital in London, which is the role he undertook (incognito) during the war. But genius out of context is the stuff of drama."
Ron Elisha is a playwright based in Melbourne, Australia. His plays have been produced throughout Australia, New Zealand, United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Poland, Israel and France, and have won a number of awards, including four Australian Writers' Guild Awards, the Mitch Matthews Award (2006) and the Houston International Film Festival Award for Best Screenplay.
Dave Spencer is the Artistic Director of Another Soup, an award-winning and critically acclaimed theatre company he founded in 2010. He is a director and producer, and has recently graduated from the King's Head Theatre's Directing Programme. He has previously directed Victorian & Gay (Hope Theatre), Lovett + Todd, and DorIan Gray (King's Head Theatre), among others.
19-30 July 2016
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