Free Dissociation

In the summer of 2004, at the arse end of the Edinburgh Festival when people should have been paying more attention, a brilliant play came along. Staged with relatively little fanfare for just a week at the Lyceum, Anthony Neilson's The Wonderful World of Dissocia was only a moderate hit despite its fantastical energy, humour, and immersive set design. Happily for Neilson, and for us, Dissocia is back on tour this month, courtesy of the National Theatre of Scotland.

In this preview interview, The Skinny catches up with the playwright to find out about some of the artistic motivations behind this vibrant, major work. The Wonderful World of Dissocia is a wild amalgam of scenes, jokes, colours and ideas. Its protagonist, Lisa Jones, is a confused girl/woman who seems to be lost in both fantasy and reality. Neilson suggests the formula is simple. "The whole show is about mental health," he explains, his tone friendly, assertive. "But it's also about imagination." There is nothing phoney about this bold statement. Rather, to split the play up into these two categories may in some ways be a modest gesture, downplaying the numerous elements touched on by a playful script. It also relates to each of the two very different acts. The first is set in Dissocia, a dreamworld of talking goats, flying cars, disco lights, and dangerous nightmares. The second, welcoming back the audience after an interval, is in the cold, white, sanitised world of a mental hospital. This change is intensely dramatic, and brings to mind the imaginative and spiritual dualism that has preoccupied Scottish writers and thinkers for generations before Neilson: Stevenson, R.D. Laing, and Alasdair Gray.

Quizzed further on this sense of double perspective, Neilson demonstrates his enthusiasm for exploring the state of the mind with his works. "The impetus for Dissocia was to explore the lure of mental illness for people with it; it takes people a while to accept that it's better to take medication. But I don't think that would be satisfying unless the situation could be analogous. In that sense the play's about sensation versus numbness. It's something we can all relate to: artistically, emotionally. We fight to restrain something within ourselves, and wonder if the balance is right. We wonder 'was it worth it?' There are echoes of Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz in there, and people find those stories very resonant. Dissocia is too specific for me to be able to say 'take what you want from it,' but I wouldn't be interested myself if it was just about mental health. But even in its most fantastical moments, it's grounded in psychological truth."

That last line is typical of Neilson's conversation. He has a trick of sticking a last sentence onto the end of his opinions, if not to undermine what he has just said, then to show that he is of more than one mind on a subject. It is clever, disarming, and quite natural. Still, this quick way with a phrase, turning meaning in a second, has only helped him in scriptwriting. Indeed, it is typical of the Neilson who rose to notoriety in the 90s as a shocking young voice on the British theatrical scene. Many of his early works – like Penetrator, or The Censor – are stark and sexual, but there has been humour and curiosity in his work all along.

On the playful nature of Dissocia, Neilson hopes "serious theatre goers won't feel talked down to by it." But still insists on his own agenda: "I get annoyed by theatre that is confusing, static, overly cerebral." Neilson makes no excuse for his will to entertain. It has its origins in his own early theatre experiences, "variety forms" of song and dance that set out to please. "I've been looking for forms in theatre that will allow us to cross-fertilise text based work with what is perceived to be more popular." He adds: "I see no conflict between art and populism."

Neilson's suggestion here that some other genres are only ever 'perceived' to be more popular than theatre is a curious one, perhaps betraying an ivory tower arrogance that assumes knowledge of what people want. Does he really think that there are more people who like theatre than admit to it, or even know it at all? "The theatrical tradition has completely informed TV drama and soaps. Theatre is sometimes criticised for being like soaps, but theatre formed them. British text based theatre is in the blood of the people." Once again he is friendly, but assertive.

Between the highbrow and the entertaining there is another area, where Neilson's love for the theatre is most clearly located: not just the chance to have fun on stage, or even to tell a meaningful story, but in the hard evidence of immediacy. "Now theatre needs to distinguish itself again," he insists. "People want a bit of spectacle. People want to see liveness, proximity. To feel alive as an audience. You can see the response of the audience to things that offer those things. Dissocia did that." Neilson's evident pride is not misplaced. Indeed, he more than met his own criteria with the first outing of this work.

There are usually good reasons to 'go out', whether for a film, a play, a night out or a shopping trip. Very few will come close to the combination of magic, danger, numbness and pain of The Wonderful World of Dissocia. Take this second chance to see a mind-blowing play produced at full-tilt in close to its original form. You won't come back the same.