For Your Twenties opens Wednesday 19th August at The Libra Theatre Cafe, exploring mental and physical decision through physical theatre. Learn more about what you can expect:
1: What inspired the story and the four main characters?
I wrote For Your Twenties, after many conversations in London about what I was doing with my life and everything suddenly became very figurative and competitive, something I wasn’t used to in my family home nor in Manchester. After this realisation, I wrote what was called “Getting it On With the Inlaws”, a comedy about Sarah and Nick and their two parents, yet after deciding I couldn’t relate to that generation with this was birthed Minty, Nicks slightly aggravating yet somehow charming Sister, and Seb the friend who is left behind yet happy in his solidarity.
2: How do the relationships between the characters change throughout the play?
Sarah and Nick, the couple, span six months in two minutes, so quite a lot for them I guess. Then introduced to the inlaws and friends, all four begin to liaise and suddenly they are all questioning each other, but ultimately questioning themselves. Sarah faces backlash with Seb, her bestie, while Nick can’t relate to Minty’s grief of their recently passed father.
3: Why was a play about exploring your twenties important to you?
Exploring your twenties is just as important to me as it is to you. I stand on the threshold of the beginning of it, questioning what I will be by thirty, like I’ll shed my skin twenty times before I can enter that level of serenity. Yet, I looked around and I realised the figuring out is a lie, we aren’t figuring out our lives and perfectly ironing our sheets, we are more just figuring out what we like, vices and all. I look at my parents’ generation and they still are stuck on things from when they were twenty that they loved or hated, this play I hope explores that nostalgia and gives a bit more of an optimistic yet real take on the trainwreck that it can be.
4: What do you hope audiences will take away about relationships and expectations after watching the show?
I just think, they should hopefully feel a bit more seen by one of these characters, even if they disagree with their morals each character has something somber in them. And also for them to have a bit of a boogie and a bit of a laugh.
5: What has been the biggest challenge in creating this production?
My biggest challenge has been, refining the script, as I can bang on for ages, if you can’t tell by this Q&A!
6: What has been the most enjoyable part about creating For Your Twenties?
Being creatively challenged by my friends, when I began RnDing this play last winter, I did most of the Movement sequence with Byron Cuervo from Madrid who is my friend who was on erasmus at my Uni, and his straight forward approach, snappiness and fabulousness all at once, challenged me to refine. Daniel Torres, who is now my AD, has such a contemporary way of making theatre and ideas, that he is invaluable to my team and a lot of this play, as my cast will agree, is rightfully his. We are never afraid to say no to each other. Along with my incredible cast of hand picked individuals, who elevate this with their own experience and some actually remember me writing this. So all in all the most enjoyable part of this has to be seeing young people like me; try and fail and get up and try again.
For Your Twenties opens Wednesday 19th August at The Libra Theatre Cafe. Many thanks to Sophie Banning for answering our questions. Book your tickets here!
Leave a Reply