The purposeful discomfort of great entertainment
We are the stories we tell ourselves. One of the most rewarding aspects of working in the culture and entertainment sector is the chance to work with some of the world’s best storytellers and visual artists. People who know how to move, inspire, and challenge us like nobody else.
And every now and then, someone comes along who aspires to transform us.
Sage & Jester, a brand-new arts production company that announced its inaugural production this week, is one of those. They are on a mission to help us think more critically about the information we consume. To do so, they promise to “mess with our minds” and make us question the very notions of truth and trust. Their mantra – “truth lies here” – says it all.
Entertainment that truly resonates often pokes at our comfort zones. Severance questions how much of our selves we are willing to sacrifice for the sake of a corporate career. By offering a domestic perspective on the Holocaust, The Zone of Interest forces us to confront our own complicity in the horrors we choose not to see. Get Out scratches the veneer of polite society, revealing the insidious nature of racism when we pretend it has all but disappeared. My personal favourite, the riveting Bojack Horseman, carefully blends bitter existential despair and self-loathing with hysterical comedy and layered gags. This kind of entertainment creates a ‘purposeful discomfort’ – that subtle nudge that makes you shift in your seat and stick around to figure out why. These stories and characters stay with us for years and become part of who we are.
What makes Sage & Jester’s approach so potent is their combination of wisdom and wit. The sage inspires us to reflect while the jester makes us laugh at ourselves. Laughter has a magical way of opening us up. When our guards are down, we can take in ideas that might otherwise feel too raw or challenging. That is presumably what Arthur Koestler meant when he wrote that “the jester is brother to the sage.”
Storehouse is Sage & Jester's first-ever production. Opening this summer in Deptford, East London, it promises to be one of the most ambitious immersive theatre productions ever staged. Don’t miss it.