COMING ON the back of two successful theatre productions in 2019 in Scalped and Sweet Like Chocolate Boy, independent multidisciplinary arts duo Initiative DKF are excited to announce Fragments Of A Complicated Mind as their first production of 2020, in association with Theatre503.

Written and directed by award-winning multidisciplinary artist, performer, playwright, and artistic director Damilola DK Fashola, who also stars in the theatre piece, Fragments Of A Complicated Mind is a darkly funny and masterfully crafted vignette play, which explores the whacky, obscene and unspoken thoughts of a complex mind. Interrogating race, religion, sex and cultural expectations, with witty word play steeped in shade and satire. Birthed in an anarchic blend of storytelling and razor sharp switches from direct address, to full on dance and poetry.

Delivered through a raw and truthful performance style, Fragments Of A Complicated Mind uses a very distinctive choreo-poetic blend of spoken word, direct address, physical theatre, and razor sharp switches to explore heavy issues, which are too often left unspoken within our society as a whole. Fashola leads an exciting cast of black British theatre and film rising stars, including Effie Ansah, Antonia Layiwola, Luke Wilson, and Luke Elliot, who will be bringing Fragments Of A Complicated Mind to life for two weeks, from January 21 to February 1, 2020 at the illustrious Theatre503 in London.

Speaking about what Fragments Of A Complicated Mind is all about, Damilola DK Fashola says: “the play is about stereotypes and cultural pressures, what you are supposed to be like as a black girl, as a writer. It is about finding yourself through your thoughts.

“It’s therapy, it’s about rationalising your thoughts and if your thoughts have to be rationalised? Experiencing the full breadth of your mind with all of its conflicting thoughts through the mind of a black female writer in the arts industry. I want the audience to think differently, leaving having dismantled some of their stereotypes about women, about black women, about what theatre can be, what it should look like, what it’s supposed to look like on black bodies”.

Going further to unpack how Fragment Of A Complicated Mind came to be, Fashola adds that: “when I started theatre making in 2009, there wasn’t really room for, or an understanding of the style. We were the only black/brown women I saw in these spaces, from open mics to pubs to scratches, talking like we did and how we did.

“In trying to push further, theatres would say ‘oh we like you, but we are not really sure’, but recently everyone’s been reaching out saying ‘it’s time, the world is ready now’. Fragments is somewhat an ode to self, gathering all those once quieted ideas into one place”.

Fragments Of A Complicated Mind* comes to London’s Theatre503 from January 21 – February 1, 2020. Advanced tickets are available right now via Theatre503.

(*) Trigger Warnings: Includes references to abortion and trauma. Explicit Language