Amygdala - Geraldine Alexander

'There is a place in the hippocampus the size of an almond called the amygdale in which is stored our emotional memory. Anything in our history that is a stimulus to our emotions resides there... The kernel of Catherine is there for the picking - I am searching for the correct tool like at Christmas when the nutcrackers have been misplaced. A hammer will shatter it.'Catherine is in a post-traumatic state and Simon, an eminent psychiatrist, is employed to help her recover her memory in time to give evidence in the trial of Joshua James - a young man accused of raping her.As the date for the trial approaches, Simon becomes absorbed with the workings of his patient's brain, as he grapples with his preconceptions of truth, memory and perspective.

Geraldine Alexander is an actor, writer and director, and Amygdala is her first professional production of her own writing, following a very successful reading at The Print Room earlier this year. Her acting credits on stage include Pillars of the Community and Strange Interlude at the National Theatre, Titus Andronicus at Shakespeare's Globe, Fall at the Traverse Theatre, Neil Bartlett's adaptation of The Maids, and State of Emergency at the Gate. Extensive television credits include Shetland, Any Human Heart, The Government Inspector, Silent Witness, Dance to the Music of Time and Poirot. Writing work includes a workshop of her play, My Mother's Skin, directed by Marianne Elliot at the National Studio, and she is co-writing a TV series in development with ITV. For RADA, she has directed The Seagull, Present Laughter and Thornton Wilder's Our Town.

[The writing] has a needle sharp clarity as it probes the allure of funding the irrational and ecstatic in our ordinary, well-behaved lives
The Guardian

... forceful, bone-shaking writing... it packs quite a wallop
Time Out