Viva Lewes Issue #146 November 2018

ON THIS MONTH: PERFORMANCE
Diving into the Wreck
Insight into addiction
Mark Hewitt and poet Maggie Sawkins have
worked together before – on the show Zones of
Avoidance, which won the Ted Hughes Award
for New Work in Poetry in 2014. This too
concerned addiction, but chronicled a mother’s
story. Diving into the Wreck passes the mic to
recovering addicts themselves.
When I visit Director Mark Hewitt, in his
Lewes Live Lit studio above the bus station, he
tells me it wasn’t at all like working with “professional
artists”. The contributors are, none of
them, trained performers, nor are they writers.
The footage is raw, and powerful. Mark and
Maggie met all the participants through PUSH
– the Portsmouth Users Self-Help Group. “We
spent three or four months workshopping ideas
and creating material as a group”, Mark says.
“Over that time I realised that just hearing them
talk about their lives was the most enthralling
and gripping thing. I wanted to capture this and
that’s why we used film.”
The resulting show, which plays in the All Saints
on 13th November, combines screening of film
footage, and recorded voice, with live accounts,
and music – both pre-recorded and some live.
The film element was shot and edited by Matt
Parsons, and Mark played me some snippets. I
heard Steve’s incredible account of childhood
anxiety – his feeling that he was “a stowaway in
this life” – and the intense relief, then, that he
discovered, on taking his first drink and, later,
through heroin – before it stopped delivering
the hit and became the problem. He also
describes, with exceptional precision and concision,
how and when he arrived at the point he
knew he had to stop.
Two ‘using partners’ – Kieran and Dan (pictured;
Dan left) – provide beautiful footage
– illuminating their relationship with addiction,
and each other. It’s intense, at the same time
as… well, funny: as footage of two people, who
know each other well, and sit side by side facing
the camera can be. Mark’s also smiling as we
talk. “Oh yes,” he says, “our work together was
full of dark humour”.
But he also talks about the common themes he
and the group saw emerge. “Many of the addicts
describe a relationship with death that they had
every day”, he says. “In one sense, wanting to
live, in another, wanting to die, and these two
forces pushing against each other. Plus, the
damage they know they’re doing to everyone
else in their lives.”
I ask, why the multimedia approach? “Having
a mix”, he says, “with pieces of film and music,
provides an architecture for the show – layers
help, and give variation. The players like these
intermissions – for a live song, for instance, like
I Drink by Mary Gauthier or Hurt, as sung by
Johnny Cash. It means no single chunk of the
show is dauntingly long for these untrained
performers.” And the audience too, I imagine?
Knowing I’d appreciate the space of a few
minutes’ immersion in song, while letting the
emotion sink in. Charlotte Gann
Diving into the Wreck is at the All Saints on 13th
November, 7.45pm. Tickets £8 in advance, £10 on
the door. leweslivelit.co.uk
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