in quarantine
Against a dark orange background, a woman dressed in black stands facing away from us. She is looking up at a giant anglepoise lamp above her head. She is holding an axe, perhaps preparing to smash something. She is standing on a tattered fragment of papyrus. She casts a shadow onto the papyrus which appears to form a character in ancient Greek, with a few more characters visible on either side.
Against a dark orange background, a woman dressed in black stands facing away from us. She is looking up at a giant anglepoise lamp above her head. She is holding an axe, perhaps preparing to smash something. She is standing on a tattered fragment of papyrus. She casts a shadow onto the papyrus which appears to form a character in ancient Greek, with a few more characters visible on either side.

Fragments

by Laura Swift and Russell Bender

The Playground Theatre, London: 14th April - 6th May | The Old Fire Station, Oxford: 12th - 13th May
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Fragments

by Laura Swift and Russell Bender

The Playground Theatre, London: 14th April - 6th May | The Old Fire Station, Oxford: 12th - 13th May
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In the backroom of a  library archive, three papyrologists pore over some tattered fragments of  papyrus, 2000 years old. Could they be the remnants of a lost  masterpiece by Euripides?

The ancient text tells the story of Aeyptus, a boy determined to  avenge his murdered father and brothers.   But how can he succeed when almost all of the script is missing? 

Piecing his story together will take you on a journey around the  fragments in your own mind: memories, assumptions, things half-heard.  

Inspired by the vast  collections of ancient papyrus stored in museums around the world, FRAGMENTS is  an irreverent take on an ancient lost play: combining anarchic  performance, lo-fi imagery, original music... and a whole lot of conjecture.

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Performance Dates

14 April-6 May - The Playground Theatre, London

‍12-13 May - The Old Fire Station, Oxford

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Captioned performances

If you are D/deaf, hard of hearing or would like captions for any other reason, captions for performances can be streamed to your own mobile device via the Difference Engine from Talking Birds. Download the free app at bit.ly/DEInfo

We are providing captioned performances on evenings of Wed 19th, Sat 22nd, Wed 26th, Sat 29th April and Wed 3rd and Sat 6th of May at The Playground Theatre, and for all performances at The Old Fire Station.

We would be delighted to provide captions for any other performance from 19th April onwards. You can request these in advance by emailing access@potentialdifference.org.uk and we will make sure someone is there to operate the captions.

We can provide a small number of suitable mobile devices for audience members who wish to use captions but are unable to use their own device.

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Cast

Afia Abusham
Sam
Akiel Dowe
Aeyptus
Anne-Marie Piazza
The Muse
Clive Mendus
Anthony
Rosie Thomson
Rachel

Creative Team

Laura Swift
Co-writer
Russell Bender
Director
Lucy Sierra
Set Designer
Maariyah Sharjil
Costume Designer
Jess Mabel Jones
Puppetry Designer
Jon McLeod
Sound designer / Composer
Victoria Saxton
Lyricist / dramaturg
Sherry Coenen
Lighting Designer
Lori Hopkins
Puppetry Director
Pete Rickards for eStage
Production Manager
Natalie Allison
Associate Producer

Making Fragments

Fragments is a new play inspired by the vast collections of ancient papyrus stored in museums around the world. The play is about the search forone of Euripides’ award-winning lost plays (Cresphontes) and puts its surviving lines back on stage for the first time in 18 centuries. With original songs and music by composer Jon McLeod and lyricist Victoria Saxton,and shadow puppetry designed by puppeteers Jess Mabel Jones, Fragments is co-written by leading Hellenic scholar Laura Swift and director Russell Bender, who have also collaborated with theatre devisors and experts from theworld of papyrus study and conservation. Fragments reveals the niche world of papyrological research while joyously celebrating humans’ fundamentaland age-old need to tell stories and to keep creating and recreating live performance.

We started developing Fragments back in 2014 when the Being Human Festival and Oxford University commissioned us to do a series of workshops exploring how to restage lost Fragments of Euripides. In 2017, we staged a workshop production at Ovalhouse and the Old Fire Station, Oxford. And in 2018, we were awarded a grant by the British Academy towards developing and producing the full production of Fragments. Since then we have visited specialists at the British Library, the British Museum and the Oxyrhynchus Collection in Oxford on our journey to bringing Fragments to the stage.

Photo galleries

Fragments production shots
Fragments production shots
Fragments production shots
Fragments production shots
Fragments production shots
Fragments production shots
Fragments production shots

Related stories

Theatre Bubble: What makes puppetry a brilliant storytelling language for FRAGMENTS?
JSTOR Daily: What does it take to stage a lost tragedy, when all that remains of it are a few fragments?
Making theatre out of fragments
What are the lost Greek tragedies?
Introducing Fragments
Read more

With support from

Potential Difference
Company number: 08674697
Registered Charity number: 1166204
hello@potentialdifference.org.uk