Disturbing new play Happy previews at the Lantern

It isn’t every day a theatre company promises an experience that will leave audience members unsure whether to laugh, cry or be sick, but that is the intent of Municipal Theatre London, which is previewing a new work in Liverpool next week before taking it up to the Edinburgh Festival. Happy is a new piece by Bosnian playwright Igor Memic, which aims to challenge the perceptions of happiness in a less than perfect society. Dad, a bank manager, lives in a perfect world. He’s a charismatic, successful sociopath loved by everyone… Or at least it would appear on the surface. At home, his wife and child live in fear. With the tagline ‘can true happiness exist in a world governed by sin?’, Liverpool University graduate Memic explains: “Dealing with topics such as happiness, rape, domestic abuse, drug abuse, suicide, as well as banking and the world economy, dire circumstance is juxtaposed against an aesthetic of overt happiness - a happiness bought and sold in bottles”. Premiering at the Edinburgh Fringe later this month, the company will be hosting a one night preview of the show at Liverpool's Lantern Theatre on Tuesday, August 14. A brief Q&A session with the play's director, writer, and actors will take place directly after the performance. They say: “Using experimental dramatic techniques and unorthodox rehearsal methods, Municipal Theatre London will deliver a show in which audience members won't know whether to laugh, cry, or be sick. Happy challenges, at its very core, the Aristotelian understanding of true happiness through a post-modern approach to theatre aesthetic and contemporary drama.” The unsettling, David Lynch-esque teaser trailer can be viewed here: