O. Lab #6 - Trouble Score

Trouble Score is a witty and disturbing narrative concert about the hardships of living with and healing from trauma. Three siblings delve into an old family scandal, a web of fragmented criminal histories, only to unravel an impossible plot—one in which the innocence of childhood collides with the warped reality of trauma, assembled against the backdrop of racial segregation and a military dictatorship. Through the stages of a ritual, the siblings encounter the doppelgangers they have created to survive: the Leader, the Outcast, and the Fixer.

With great humor and complicity, Trouble Score captures the fantastical, mysterious, and often hallucinatory nature of family dynamics—the “strangely familiar.” The show uses magical realism to turn negative events into pop songs, coping mechanisms into hyperbolic analogies, and unhealthy patterns into restorative mantras—turning dozens of cases of suffering into dozens of cases of healing. The set, made up entirely of laser light design, creates an otherworldly, distorted atmosphere: a visual metaphor for the limitations the characters face.

With Trouble Score, lifelong collaborators Luanda Casella and Pablo Casella return to the roots of their collaboration: the storytelling concert. The show emerges from their unique style of arranging layered text, sound samples, pre-recorded and live music into a complex composition. A healing celebration and a symbol of eternal connectedness. Trouble Score also contains many of the elements that make up Luanda Casella’s artistic universe: a look at the ‘unreliable narrator’, an exploration of literary genres, a speculation around popular forms of communication and the prominent use of text projections, based on the belief in the power of language for imagination.

Credits

Concept: Luanda Casella & Pablo Casella, dramaturgy: Jolien Vermeulen, text & performance: Luanda Casella, composition & performance: Pablo Casella, lighting design: Nick Verstand, motion graphics: Wouter van Nes, costume design: Jo De Visscher

About O. Lab

During O. Lab you get a glimpse into the rehearsal space of theatre makers, something that is normally reserved for a select group… Artists share their research questions with you and you as a visitor can give your valuable opinion about the prototypes and works-in-progress that you see. O. Lab in WORM is one big creative space and you have a front row seat to the making process!

About O. Lab

O. Lab offers the audience a peak into the theater makers' rehearsal rooms. Something that is normally reserved for the select few… Artists will share their research questions. As the visitor, you are invited to watch and express your valuable opinions about prototypes and works in progress. O. Lab in WORM is one big creative space and you will be sitting in the front row as the processes unfold!