REAL KNOWS REAL

After the #MeToo movement shakes the creative industries to the core, Amir, a celebrated actor-cum-writer living a comfortably middle-class life, decides to go back to the estate where he grew up to make a documentary film about social class and toxic masculinity. When he meets his old friends, Amir is forced to confront all of the traumatic memories from his teenage years, and unexpectedly finds himself the subject of the documentary instead of the artist behind it. He is left to grapple with questions about privilege, and with which parts of his life and identity he is willing to exploit for the sake of lending an air of authenticity and credibility to his art. The play, itself not autobiographical but inspired by the playwright’s own background, asks us to interrogate our ideas about lived experience and the authentic voice, and which artists we place those demands on.