Aliki Chapple: I'm an actor, and sometimes a writer, based in Lancaster, in the north of England. I also do some teaching and some voice work.
Sturgeon’s Law is the name under which I've been writing and performing original work since 2009. Some of this work has been entirely my own, some was created in collaboration with others.
Why Sturgeon's Law?
When I first started making shows under that name, it was Sturgeon's more famous law I had in mind. I was imagining a strapline that said something like: 90% of everything is crud, we try to be in the other 10%. By the time I started to write this blog, which is, in part, an examination of what I really mean by my various dogmatic utterances about theatre, Sturgeon's other law seemed more appropriate: Nothing is always absolutely so.
This blog is a ragbag of documentation, mental meanderings, and the occasional review. When I started it, I had a very clear idea of which theatrical practices I wanted to champion, and which I wanted to critique. It's all much less clear now. I'm still very much concerned with the politics of theatre, but not necessarily in the obvious ways. Some of my closest professional ties are with people experimenting radically with form, and questioning the very idea of performance. Some of my other closest associations are with people doing Shakespeare, or slapstick physical theatre - sometimes both. Me, I care about acting more than about other aspects of performance, and I like narrative and character more than live art - except when I don't.
I'm also a founding member of The Rose Company an all-female theatre company specialising in historical dramatic texts, but I don't expect to write much about it here, please see the company's blog for more.
