Blindness
By Simon Stephens

Based on Blindness by José Saramago

A person loses their sight, without warning, without obvious cause. Within hours, it becomes clear that this is no ordinary blindness. It is contagious. Incidents of sudden blindness spread rapidly across the city. The government, desperate to contain the outbreak, quarantines the infected in an abandoned hospital, but panic engulfs society as increasingly oppressive measures take hold. How long before the streets descend into chaos? How long before food supplies run out? How soon before power, gas, and water systems collapse? Only one woman remains immune. She retains her vision and bears witness to both shocking brutality and unexpected tenderness in a city that sinks, both literally and metaphorically, into darkness. What would you do if you were the only one who could see in a world gone blind?

Following the tradition of Albert Camus’ The Plague (1947) and William Golding’s Lord of the Flies (1964), Nobel laureate José Saramago explores the depths of human nature under extreme conditions in the pages of his world-renowned Blindness. Now, one of Britain’s most celebrated dramaturgs, Simon Stephens, adapts this masterwork of a myth uniquely, balancing between light and darkness, humour and insanity, poetry and dystopia.

Presenting the world premiere of the adaptation by the award-winning British dramaturg five years after the outbreak of the pandemic, Emily Louizou explores the corrosive effect of fear on the dissolution of our societies through an allegoric lens. She illuminates the distorted image of a society in panic, one that consents without hesitation to the crackdown of the most elemental and historically gained human rights. With the eerie tension of a psychological thriller, the play pairs the apocalyptic setting of quarantine with intense physicality, bringing the power of intimacy into sharp focus as the need for survival grows ever more urgent. As integral elements of the directorial vision, the original music and movement guide the theatre ensemble in a haunting narrative journey from darkness to light.