Blue Stocking Effigy is a theatre company and artist collective that focuses on supporting women and non-binary artists and their stories.
This week they’re performing Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again. by Alice Birch, we sat down with director Krysianna Papadakis to talk about revolting, making a stamp on an existing work and what counts as violence.
In deeply troubling times, this play highlights the ‘devastating humour’? How do you find the funny?
The funny is how we get through the troubling times! Obviously, when things seem to be going downhill in the world, we’ve still got to keep challenging and finding ways to fix things. But that doesn’t mean we have to be boring about it. Women today still have to deal with a lot of nonsense, and those expectations can weigh you down. But we’re trying to use those weights as material to play with onstage.
Blue Stocking Effigy in rehearsals
The idea of a revolt is appealing to many, is this a call to arms?
If we do it properly, we hope so! There’s a lot of calls to arms out there – online, in the news, in politics – so the desire for change seems like a pretty universal experience right now. But many movements have not been very inclusive. We’re hoping this call appeals to people from different ages, backgrounds and genders. Intergenerational dialogue is particularly important to our show, so we’re hoping this revolt achieves that!
You’ve told us this play is primarily about language, can you tell us one of your linguistic pet peeves?
I hate it when people use ‘he’ for things (people, babies, pets) when they don’t know the gender. Change the default people! It’s great that ‘they’ is becoming more common.
An atmospherically lit rehearsal
Alice Birch’s play has quite a following and has received very varied productions, what are you seeking from your interpretation?
I think our interpretation leans into how familiar these characters and situations are, rather than how bizarre they are. These are experiences most people have, especially women, and so we’ve set them in very familiar, relatable locations. We’ve also slightly modernized the settings. For example, rather than placing a 1980s cubicle style office, we’ve set the scenes in a hip young start-up. ‘Cool’ environments can still be oppressive!
Tell us a little about Blue Stocking Effigy, how did you come together and what is your mission?
We came together after a successful run of the Vagina Monologues in March 2019, where we were raising money for a group of charities. We really enjoyed the working relationship and the creative process, and shared a common passion for social change through theatre. We started brewing ideas over the summer about what our next show could be, and we landed on Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again. because of how it conveys our company ethos.
Blue Stocking Effigy at
the Spring Season Launch Party
And lastly, we did have a contextual difference, what you call ‘mild violence’ we consider ‘obscene and graphic violence’, can you tease us a little about what this may involve?
I think it has to do with the fact that there is no malicious intent in the physical violence on stage. Without giving too much away, the most gruesome violence occurs as a way to avoid confrontation rather than continue it. Though disturbing, something about that seemed empowering to us, and hence less frightening.
Krysianna Papadakis – Director
Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again.
By Alice Birch
January 28th – February 2nd