OCTOPUS

Supported by: Writers at Sea Residency

Finalist: Alpine Fellowship Playwriting Award 2019.

Rehearsed readings|workshops: Tron Theatre | Royal Conservatoire of Scotland | Playwright’s Studio Scotland

Octopus is about human evolution, identity & survival in the face of ecological disaster. In a near-future, a group of strangers become trapped deep in an aquarium during one of the city’s regular smog drills. With only themselves, the fish, and an octopus for company, their personalities clash and tensions rise. One by one, they begin to transform into a new symbiotic creature. The play is inspired by octopuses having semi-autonomous ‘brains’ in each tentacle, guided by a central nervous system. It asks how our biology might evolve to save the planet, and whether we are truly capable of change.