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The First Questions

In 2014, Planter’s Island marked the birth of the Fragen approach to theatre: a philosophy rooted in curiosity, self-examination, and the confrontation of self-deception. In this first of three posts about Planter's, we remember how this dream-play set the foundation for our work, exploring the hidden patterns of behaviour that trap us and asking whether change is possible. In this blog, we’ll introduce Fragen’s core ideas and how they first emerged in Planter’s Island.



A man in trench coat and trilby hat steps into a bathtub. A sailor stands behind him, hands on the tiller. The bathtub is a motorboat, a motorboat in a small studio theatre. The man’s name is Plotter, a private detective haunted by the disappearance of his children. As he steps into a surreal, shifting landscape, his search leads him to a journalist, a mass murder, and an island shrouded in mystery. But none of this is real, or not in the way we might expect. Planter’s Island was never about solving a crime. It was about peeling back the layers of Plotter’s subconscious, uncovering his guilt, his grief, and the stories he tells himself to survive.

 

In 2014, we created a play called Planter’s Island. At the time, we didn’t recognise it as the foundation of what would become the Fragen approach to theatre. In hindsight, it was where our method, with its focus on thematic inquiry and the confrontation of self-deception, first emerged. What we developed then has informed every production we’ve made since. This discussion marks the beginning of a broader exploration of how Fragen’s principles emerged in the past and how they continue to evolve in present and future.

 

The Fragen approach is built on one central idea: theatre is the space for questions, not answers. Our aim is not to resolve issues but to test assumptions, our own and the audience’s. We believe in starting from curiosity, letting the work develop its own direction rather than imposing conclusions. This commitment begins in the writing process and extends into rehearsal and performance.

 

Central to this philosophy is the idea of the confrontation with self-deception. Our characters, like all people, hide truths from themselves. These truths may not be verbal or concrete. Often, they reveal themselves through repeated patterns of behaviour, patterns that harm others, harm the self, or perpetuate cycles of avoidance and denial. The core of a Fragen play is the struggle to confront these patterns. Whether or not a character succeeds defines the outcome of the drama. A resolution, whether redemptive or tragic, is never predetermined; it must emerge naturally from the structure of the play and the choices of the characters.

 

Planter’s Island was the first full realisation of these ideas. It is a dream play in which every character and event represents an aspect of the unconscious. The story follows a private detective named Plotter, who is searching for his missing children. Early in his investigation, he learns about a mass murder on a remote island and a journalist who disappeared while investigating it. What unfolds is not a straightforward detective story but a journey into the symbolic terrain of guilt, grief, and buried truths.

 

In the world of Planter’s Island, nothing is literal. The island, the journalist, even Plotter himself are projections of a dreaming mind. The central question is whether Plotter will confront the source of his guilt or remain trapped in his denial. But the play complicates this question further: is Plotter truly the dreamer, or is he also a construct of the unconscious? There is no guarantee that Plotter is a real person. He too might be dream-product, disguising the suppressed turmoil of another mind. The ambiguity points to a larger confrontation, that it is the audience which is the dreamer. The patterns of guilt and self-deception explored in the play do not belong to Plotter alone. They reflect something universal. They tap into our own patterns. Sitting, watching the play, you come to suspect that YOU are the subject of what you are watching.

 

This focus on universality is a defining feature of the Fragen approach. While our stories are specific, their deeper currents, of fear, loss, avoidance, the struggle for self-awareness, resonate beyond the immediate drama. In Planter’s Island, these themes unfold in a dreamscape, their outlines stark, the underlying themes more direct. In other works, the same conflicts are disguised by external action, waking action, between coherent characters, but the heart of each play remains the same: an exploration of unconscious forces and their impact on human behaviour.

 

One of the key principles we discovered in Planter’s Island was the importance of withholding explanation. The dream forces at work in the play resist resolution. They cannot be easily categorised or simplified without losing their potency. Instead, they must be engaged with as mysteries, contradictory, complex, and alive. For us, theatre is not a place for easy answers or tidy conclusions. It is a space where the messy, unresolved aspects of life can be explored in their full depth.

 

When we look back on Planter’s Island, we see it as the origin of Fragen, not just as a method, but as a philosophy. It was the first time we attempted to dramatise the confrontation with self-deception, to explore how unconscious patterns hold us back, and to invite the audience into that exploration. It was also the first time we saw the value of letting a play develop organically, allowing its questions to guide us rather than forcing an outcome.

 

This is the first in a series of posts that will delve into the ideas and processes behind Fragen. In future posts, we’ll explore the methods we use in writing and rehearsals, the thematic patterns that recur in our work, and the ways we try to engage our audience in these processes. Planter’s Island stands was the beginning of something we still haven’t quite figured out, a play that asked the questions we’re still grappling with today.


15.01.25

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© 2014 by Fragen Theatre Company

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