We interviewed writer Luke Stapleton about his debut play Mycorrhiza – showing for the rest of this week only as part of our Foreword Festival! Book your tickets here and don’t miss out!
Describe Mycorrhiza in three words.
Embryonic. Fibrous. Bracken-ish…?
What inspired you to write the play?
A myriad of weird places.
Chiefly, this statistic: 1 in 6 men have been sexually abused. Only 1 in 10 men report the crime. (1in6). It was the latter nugget of this stat that really got me. I’d been wanting to write a play that took a sideways grapple with toxic masculinity for a while, specifically targeting our struggles to communicate and express emotions and experiences, and this completely encapsulated the central conflict I wanted one of my characters to be going through. But equally I knew that I wanted the play to be about friendship, and our duty to one another as family, friends and strangers on the bus, so inevitably I drew from my own relationships and connections. There’s a little bit of everybody I’ve ever met in the play’s two central characters, Dean and Alicia.
I like nature (which sounds mental to say but so many people just…don’t) and when I first heard about the process of mycorrhiza it felt like a beautiful metaphor for what I was trying to say about human interaction in the play. Gradually it became more prominent within the story and took on a more personal meaning for Dean and Alicia, eventually confusing everybody by becoming the title of the play.
Dean and Alicia couldn’t be more different. Who’s your favourite…?
In many ways they’re the antithesis of one another – Dean as the introvert of nuclear-family stock, overwhelmed by life and withdrawing as a result, but with an anger festering deep within him, whilst Alicia is the headstrong warrior who’s overcome more in adolescence than most do in a lifetime, and she has thick armour – but inside she’s hurting. They both share the same inherent ‘weakness’ – they’re ill-equipped to deal with their trauma and struggle to offer their counterpart the support they need, each convinced in their own way that they have the answer.
So in short, I’m gonna bottle it and say I don’t have a favourite… They each represent opposing sides of one psyche, and both were devastating and hilarious to write, in their own ways. Sorry! D:
What do you want the audience to talk about in the bar afterwards?
Dean’s story
The complexity, fragility and delicate balance of nature and its symbiotic relationship with human beings
Dido
The acting
Old people doing rude stuff in big wooden sex machines
Ever had to survive the night on a remote Scottish island…?
(eyes glaze over) Yes, but we don’t talk about that…
No, I can’t say I have, however the island in the play is based on a real place that I’ve visited a bunch of times – Hilbre Island, The Wirral. It’s an incredibly atmospheric place, particularly when the tide is in. Feels like you’re stuck in purgatory. It has secrets. Go visit.
Any advice for playwrights writing their first play?
Erm (strong start)
Find your own process. Everyone writes differently. There’s a balance between a) writing impulsively from the heart and b) doing all the grey, boring planning work that you need to find. But don’t think you can get away without doing one of them – they support one another. A delicious convo or snippet of a scene achieved by ‘a’ is nothing without the direction of a structured plan, which is what ‘b’ offers.
Write short plays first, apply to competitions (there are tons out there) and get them put on as part of scratch nights. Hugely important to see your work up on stage first. And don’t be snide towards the short play. They can be ace.
Each and every scene needs to have a clear purpose – this is one of the biggest lessons I learnt writing Mycorrhiza. Sounds obvious but it’s amazing how often you think what you’re writing has a point, when in actual fact you’re going in circles, or over-clarifying, or digging a bigger hole, or making the wrong point, etc, etc.
Get some humour into a ‘serious’ play, and inject some powerful drama into a ‘comedy’ play.
“When the fun stops, stop” – Big Ray, Bet365
Mycorrhiza runs from Tuesday 14 May – Saturday 18 May
Book tickets HERE