Short story writer David Gaffney is collecting the anonymous confessions of the people of Poole to turn them into micro-stories. He will perform the stories in special one-to-one performances in a custom built mobile confessional box in Poole town centre as part of the Poole Literary Festival.
After hearing the stories, the listener will decide on an appropriate penance and at the end of the project the penances will be posted on the Poole confessions website. You never know, the real sinner might read these suggestions and act on them.
The Poole Confessions uses the unique live setting of a confessional box to explore what happens when a community’s real life confessions are collected, rewritten and performed for everyone to comment on – is this an ancient function of storytelling, long since been forgotten?
Why the Poole confessions?
To enter a dark box and tell a complete stranger hidden behind a screen everything you’ve done wrong is a weird idea. Yet confession forms a central part of many religious beliefs. The Poole Confessions will explore issues of guilt and forgiveness in an increasingly secular world. It is difficult to share concerns about transgression, rightness and wrongness, or find safe neutral places to explore issues about correct and incorrect behaviour, or paths to redemption. The Poole Confessions reverses the usual roles so that you the audience member take on the part of the priest, the giver of absolution, and asks of you, do you forgive? Can you offer a suitable penance, an act of contrition which will absolve the sinner of their sin? If so what would that penance be?
Be part of the Poole confessions. Post your secret confession, come along and hear the stories, or just have a read about what people from Poole are confessing about.
It’s all anonymous, so get it off your chest.
When will the Poole Confessions be performed?
David will be in his confession box reading the stories on the weekend of 29 – 30 October in Poole town centre. Look out for the box, and join the queue so that you can hear a real life confession and decide on a penance.
The Poole confessions is a special commission for the Poole Literary Festival, a brand new festival for the South West.
See www.davidgaffney.co.uk for more about David’s work