098700/Z/12/Z: Moth

Project Summary:Diane is fifty-eight, Daisy is sixteen. Diane is a recluse, Daisy is normal. Diane rarely leaves the house, Daisy is normal. Diane doesn't like taking her coat off in public, is never sure what to say, how to say it. Auntie Diane once had a strange...episode. Daisy is normal. Except, Daisy isn’t normal anymore, she’s got lupus. Recovering from surgery after severe kidney failure brought on by the disease, the drugs she has to take are making her fat and bald. Worst of all, her dad can’t cope and has roped in her mad aunt Diane to babysit her. If it wasn’t for GoogleChat people would forget she even existed. Although they may not know it, these two women have inherited the same ‘invisible’ disease that has long been misunderstood by medical science. Diagnosed as psychotic when a teenager in the Sixties, Diane spent six months in an institution surrounded by elderly inpatients. Forty years later she discovers, in the literature on her niece’s condition, that lupus can ‘mimic’ madness and her sanity is up for question once more. Meanwhile, Daisy’s father is quietly freaking out, turning the medical pamphlets upside down to try and make sense of it all. His daughter gets it, she completely understands everything and needs no help - until everything suddenly goes wrong again and her health deteriorates dramatically. Moth is a play about understanding a disease which eludes understanding. And, ultimately, about surviving it. Created in association with the Louise Coote Lupus Unit at St Thomas’s Hospital, playwright Melanie Spencer worked with staff, patients and the St Thomas’s Lupus Trust to develop this authentic, human and clinically plausible play over a twelve month research period.

Grant Holder:Miss Clementine Forfar

Organisation:Made By Brick

Financial Year:2012/2013