Guillaume Pigé - The Nature of Forgetting Interview

Following more than 200 performances worldwide, Theatre Re brings its explosive, powerful and joyous piece about what is left when memory is gone back to the UK for its landmark 10th Anniversary Season.

Photo by Ellie Kurttz.

Since its 2017 premiere, THE NATURE OF FORGETTING has moved audiences from New York to Seoul, São Paulo to Shanghai, and played to sold-out houses across the US, China and beyond; establishing itself as one of the most powerful theatrical experiences of the past decade.

Tom is living with young onset dementia. We meet him as he prepares for his 55th birthday party and past memories come flooding back. Developed with Neuroscience Professor Kate Jeffery and the Alzheimer’s Society, THE NATURE OF FORGETTING is a life-affirming journey into a weakening mind, where fragmented does not have to mean defeated.

As one of the UK’s leading visual theatre companies, Theatre Re combines original live music with striking visual performance to create deeply moving, non-verbal theatre about universal human challenges and the fragility of life.

We speak to Guillaume Pigé, creator, director, actor, and Theatre Re's Artistic Director, to learn more about the show.

Looking back over the last ten years and over 200 performances worldwide, how has your own relationship with The Nature of Forgetting evolved since its premiere in 2017?
The Nature of Forgetting is starting to become an old friend!

I know it well and, somehow, it continues to surprise me. It has taught me an enormous amount about theatre: about its constant fragility, but also about what it can do when all the stars align. It has taught me about touring, collaboration and the extraordinary bond that develops when a team of remarkable humans goes through unbelievable adventures together.

Perhaps most importantly, it has taught me about the maker I want to be, the work I want to make and the people I want to make it with.

Tom experiences young-onset dementia—a condition often misunderstood or overlooked compared to late-life dementia. Why was it important to centre the story on a 55-year-old protagonist?
We wanted to make a clear distinction between dementia and ageing. Tom’s difficulties are caused by early-onset dementia, and placing him at 55 helped us make that distinction immediately.

You’ve performed this piece across vastly different cultures—from New York to Seoul, São Paulo to Shanghai. What has touring this production taught you about the universal nature of memory and grief?
What has surprised me most is how similarly people have connected with the piece around the world. The ways people express their responses vary, of course, but the work seems to resonate in a deep and intuitive way across very different cultures.

We all have memories, people we love and things we are afraid of losing. That gives the work a shared point of connection. Our use of movement and live music also leaves room for audiences to bring their own experiences into what they see and hear. Tom’s story is specific, but people can recognise something of themselves, or someone close to them, within it.

Bringing the show back to the UK for this landmark 10th Anniversary Season, does returning to it today feel like a revival, or has the piece matured into something new?
The piece has never really left us. We have been lucky enough to perform it regularly over the past ten years, apart from a break during Covid. To keep it alive over that time, it has had to keep changing.
The score remains the same, but each new performer makes different connections, allowing us to keep questioning and challenging what we might otherwise take for granted.

Through that process, the work becomes more precise and its possibilities become clearer. It is a little like growing older ourselves: our experiences change us, although we remain recognisably the same person. The production has matured in that way.

Photo by Ellie Kurttz

Theatre Re is renowned for physical and visual storytelling. How do you translate the complex, internal experience of memory loss and neurological decline into movement and physical metaphor?
Memory works visually and our hippocampus – small region located at the centre of the brain - acts a little bit like a workshop area where memories are constructed. For instance, if we try to remember our first kiss at school, space - the classroom - is the first thing that gets constructed in our hippocampus. 

Then, that space is being filled with more details such as wooden school desks for instance, and then with people – other children, the teacher...etc. And then the actual event – the kiss – comes last.

So when we remember we visually construct and re-construct memories. Portraying forgetting on stage thus became about introducing more and more physical problems in this visual re-construction, and that is where the medium of physical theatre and mime takes its full potential.

The tagline notes that "fragmented does not have to mean defeated." How do you balance the poignant, heavy reality of early onset dementia with the explosive joy and vitality that permeates the performance?
The joy comes from the life we are discovering. Tom’s core memories are about friendship, love, and the excitement of being alive. Those experiences give us something to care about as his ability to reconstruct them becomes more fragile.

We also build the performance through actions. Tom keeps trying, searching and rebuilding. That gives him energy and agency, even when he encounters enormous difficulties. We want to remain honest about those difficulties while allowing the fullness of his life to exist on stage.

One of my all time goal is for the audience to leave with a smile on their face and a tear in their eye. Both belong to this story.

Live music plays an integral role in Theatre Re’s work. How did the musical composition develop alongside the physical choreography during rehearsals to reflect Tom’s cognitive state?
Alex Judd composed the music in the rehearsal room as the piece was being developed. We begin with all collaborators in the room together, so movement, music and design can influence one another throughout the process. A physical discovery might suggest a musical direction, and something Alex plays might open up a new possibility for movement.

Our research interviews also explored the special bond between music and memory, and those conversations fed into the creation.

The score helps us shape the experience of continuity, interruption and return. Because it is performed live, it remains in an active relationship with the performers. Music is part of how Tom’s world is constructed and how we experience its fragility.

The simple act of getting dressed for a 55th birthday party serves as the anchor for Tom's journey. How do everyday objects and routine actions become portals into profound memory within the choreography?
At the beginning of the show, Tom is trying to get dressed for his birthday party, and the feel of his clothes sparks a connection with his past.

Objects are central to the way we work. They become catalysts for discovery. The wooden school desks, for instance, quickly became central to the world we were creating. They gave the performers something to play with, encouraging childhood scenes to emerge.

I am interested in the inherent theatricality of ordinary or “poor” objects. Through the way someone handles them, the rhythm of an action and their relationship to other bodies, they can begin to carry an entire world.

Collaborating with Neuroscience Professor Kate Jeffery and the Alzheimer’s Society was key to developing the show. What was the most surprising scientific insight about memory that directly shaped your stage movement or narrative structure?
One idea that stayed with us was that forgetting is part of how memory works. We forget far more than we remember, and the brain does not retain every experience equally. We are therefore, in a sense, shaped as much by what we forget as by what we remember.

During our interviews, we were also struck by accounts of distant memories becoming unexpectedly vivid, even as more recent experiences became difficult to recall. Memories that seemed to have disappeared could suddenly feel very close.

That contrast was fascinating to us and helped shape Tom’s journey: the growing difficulty of navigating the present alongside the vividness of moments from his past.

Photo by Ellie Kurttz.

How did working with individuals and families affected by early onset dementia influence the emotional authenticity of Tom’s character and story?
Those encounters were essential in connecting our research with lived experience.

Tom is not based on one person. We were very conscious that experiences of dementia differ enormously, both for those living with it and for those caring for someone. We could not claim to reproduce exactly what happens inside another person’s mind.

More than anything, those interviews gave us the confidence to create our own story, while remaining attentive to the people and experiences that had informed it.

Neuroscience views memory as a reconstructive process rather than a static recording. How did that concept influence the way scenes are repeated, shattered, or rebuilt on stage?
It gave us a set of rules for making the work. Each return to a scene became another attempt to assemble a memory, with its own difficulties.

Memories can be described as tangled threads. Pulling on one thread reveals a sequence of events, but another can become caught in it. Different memories interfere with one another, and eventually parts of those sequences become impossible to retrieve.

That allowed us to use repetition actively. The audience recognises a scene and begins to anticipate its continuation, then experiences what happens when that continuation is interrupted. Recognition becomes part of the theatrical experience: they can feel the gap between what they expect and what Tom manages to reconstruct.

As a director and performer, playing a role as physically demanding and emotionally nuanced as Tom must take a toll. How do you and the ensemble maintain the necessary physical precision and emotional energy night after night?
Ongoing training is essential. We begin with a thorough warm-up, and that time also allows us to come together and address notes from the previous performance.

The show depends on the whole ensemble, including the musicians and technical team. Physical actions, sound and lighting are closely connected, so everyone’s attention matters.

Within that precision, I try to remain responsive to my fellow collaborators. There is always something different to notice in a partner’s action or choice. That ongoing attention helps keep the work alive, even after so many performances.

Visual theatre relies heavily on ensemble trust. How has Theatre Re’s collaborative process evolved over the years through creating and touring work like this?
We have always worked collaboratively, beginning by playing with objects and with each other, and gradually discovering the work through doing. We also regularly open our rehearsal room to share and test the work with the experts we are collaborating with.

What these ten years have given us is greater precision and confidence in that process. We have become more articulate about how movement, music and design work together, and better able to question the purpose of each choice.

Working with new performers has been central to that development. Someone arriving with a different background can reveal things we no longer see. Trust includes making room for those questions and allowing them to change the work.

As Theatre Re celebrates this major milestone, how has The Nature of Forgetting shaped the creative vision and future direction of the company moving forward?
It has been fundamental to the development of Theatre Re’s performance language. Spending so long with one production has allowed us to discover how much depth can emerge through sustained exploration and refinement.

It has also strengthened our commitment to collaboration across disciplines. The encounters between artists, scientific research and lived experience opened possibilities we could not have discovered alone.
Going forward, I want us to keep that curiosity and give new work the time and care it needs. That experience also feeds into our training: what we discover through making and touring becomes something we can share with other artists and young people. Those activities continually enrich one another.

At its core, the piece asks what remains when memory is stripped away. What answer or feeling do you hope audiences take away regarding human connection and identity?
We began with the question: what is left when memory is gone? We are still looking for an answer. Making the show gave us a way to explore that question through an experience, and sometimes that experience feels more tangible than anything I could explain in words.

I hope audiences feel the fragility of life and the importance of being present with one another. I also hope they encounter Tom as someone whose humanity, and capacity for connection, remain throughout his difficulties.

Perhaps the feeling I most want to leave them with is a renewed awareness of the people beside them, and of the extraordinary value of an ordinary moment shared.

The Nature of Forgetting plays at the following venues;

LONDON, Hackney Empire
Oct 8th - 7.30pm  - BOOK TICKETS

JERSEY, Jersey Opera House
Oct 13th to 15th - 7.30pm & 1.30pm - BOOK TICKETS

LEICESTER, Curve
Nov 9th & 10th - 7.30pm & 2.15pm - BOOK TICKETS

HERTFORD, BEAM
Nov 11th & 12th - 7.30pm - BOOK TICKETS

CHINA, SHANGHAI, Jasmine Theatre
Nov 25th & 26th - 7.30pm - BOOK TICKETS

CHINA, NANTONG, Nantong Grand Theatre
Nov 28th & 29th, 7.30pm & 2.30pm - BOOK TICKETS

CHINA, GUANGZHOU, Canton Tower Theatre as part of GBA Culture and Arts Festival
Dec 6th - 2.30pm & 7.30pm - BOOK TICKETS

HORNCHURCH, Queen's Theatre
Feb 11th & 12th - 2.30pm, 7.30pm & 6.30pm - BOOK TICKETS

LEEDS, Leeds Playhouse
Feb 24th & 25th - On sale shortly

CHESTER, The Storyhouse
March 3rd & 4th - 7pm - BOOK TICKETS

Photo by Johan Persson.