Fagbreak opens Thursday 22nd October at the Bread & Roses Theatre, a new play exploring dreams, delusion, despair and desires of four people over one summer. Learn more about what you can expect:
1: What inspired you to create Fagbreak?
Fagbreak was inspired from the summer I turned 19. I got this job off a trading estate near South Bermondsey outside a brewery where I would run hot dogs and burgers to tables, from a small street food truck. Inside the kitchen were mostly men, white, late 20s or so, with an Irish London or Scottish background. I would often sit outside waiting for tickets to come, in the south london heat of the concrete and cigarettes. Inside, there would be one or two, or three or four all together talking about life, women and the mundane. My shifts would go from 12 to 10pm and as the sun started closing in, they would often drink, work and talk themselves away into the night. Although I had been exposed to boys before at college and church and I had never been a fly on the wall to men’s conversations, especially these types of men. That summer was like a coming of age ritual and completely changed how I saw men, and how I saw life.
2: The story follows characters over a summer. What interests you about exploring characters over this short period?
I think Summer is a season which inspires a lot of art, from Vivaldi to one of my favourite films, My Summer of Love. Although it’s one of the shortest seasons the heat can create these quite intense, heightened periods of time where everything stops still and bleeds into one, which can create interesting stakes for characters, especially for young people. When you’re young summer can often bring a huge transformation and endless possibilities. Then by late September it’s all gone and you’re left with the remnants.
3: Is Fagbreak ultimately a story about people trapped by their circumstances or about the choices they make within them?
I think that’s one of the questions the play is asking. Can we get out of cycles or are we bound to them? Can we change who we are or is it already embedded in us, set in stone. Who are we if we don’t get our dreams?
4: How important is humour in a story that deals with bleak circumstances?
So important. I think the most depressed people are usually the ones telling the joke. Rarely does the Class Clown come from nowhere. With my earlier drafts there was too much sort of heaviness and darkness so I had to reign it in a bit. Often “lads” banter is a surface for something much deeper.
5: What has audiences resonated most with so far?
Mostly people have been saying how it reminds them of the environments of their old hospitality jobs they used to work in and that community that you can build in very short periods of time. You share things with people you meet in these jobs. Maybe things you wouldn’t tell even your close friends. Then due to the nature of the sector, sometimes you never see them again.
6: What has been the most enjoyable part about creating Fagbreak?
I think hearing male actors read out my writing and then feeding back to me that it sounds like real life conversations they’ve had or experienced, or that their characters feel like
someone they know. That to me, feels like gold dust. As a female writer writing about men, I didn’t want to fall into that trap of making the audience feel like, oh these men are bad people, because they weren’t. To me they were just deeply fractured human beings and it’s important to me that these characters were written with care and consideration, and not just as a stereotype.
Fagbreak opens Thursday 22nd October at the Bread & Roses Theatre. Many thanks to the creative team for answering our questions. Book your tickets here!
Max
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