‘Barely Human’, Q&A with cast and crew
A Far Between Theatre Production, ‘Barely Human’ debuts at the Courtyard Theatre this August as part of the Camden Fringe, following a critically acclaimed previous run. It is written by and stars Eva Voss, actress and co-founder of Far Between Theatre. The story follows Eva, fresh out of prison and advised by her therapist to get into cabaret as a creative outlet. Surveyed by her probation officer, Eva is determined to prove she's ready for new beginnings, but things take a dark turn as the lines between reality, performance, liberation and spectacle collide. The play asks: where does violence really end? Can re-invention ever be as simple as behaving yourself? Ahead of the run, I spoke to Eva Voss and the team behind Far Between Theatre about the show's origins, the fringe festival and the themes that lie at the heart of the show.
Questions for the company/creative team:
Barely Human is returning after a successful debut that got outstanding reviews. What made you want to bring it back for the Camden Fringe and has the show evolved since its debut? We wanted to bring Barely Human to more audiences in the UK, before we take it abroad. The show can be a strange, intimate experience to buy into, but also quite a transformative piece, and we wanted to give more people an opportunity to see it. It remains incredibly relevant politically, too, especially where political and personal experiences of violence meet. We’ve sharpened some of the ideas in the show that we felt needed to be brought out a bit more, but mostly it is the same show.
Can you tell us about the creative process behind the production? Where did the initial idea come from and how has it developed?
The initial questions came from the brutal, shameless violence on the international stage in the last five years, and our collective inability to stop it. More than that, people are becoming increasingly willing (again) to throw away living with our differences in favour of ruthlessly imposing sameness. In the last few generations in Western Europe, we may have thought that all this was avoidable - it now seems that it isn’t. Why is that? Where does violence come from and where does it go? The show began as a way to trace that question in one human life, and it found many, many roots, and few outlets.
This work combines theatre and cabaret - what opportunities does this hybrid form offer and why does it feel like the right way to tell this story?
The ever-present hatred and devaluing of women and other-gendered people, and the violence constantly committed against them without provocation, is absurd. But we seem to accept it as normal: even protests against it can feel run-of-the-mill. It is a reality of life, all the way from not being interested in girls’ sporting achievements to murdering or mutilating women for exercising their selfhood. Songs allow you to quickly set up and experience fantastical worlds, i.e. take you away from reality and naturalism. They bring in heightened language and emotions, and because Barely Human uses musical theatre and pop songs, it makes it easy to connect Eva’s experiences to those of other characters and people. But direct-address theatre is better at allowing you to witness a person experiencing something in real time. And it can break down the barrier between audience and performer, to create experiences in the room together. It matters that the audience is there: it wouldn’t happen the same way on another night, with different people. So, to allow audiences to experience this juxtaposition of the absurdity and normality of every-day violence, Barely Human uses the heightened expression of song, as well as the direct, spontaneous nature of one-person theatre.
Are there any particular conversations you are hoping to spark with this show?
Where does violence come from and where does it go when we are personally done with it? Can we interrupt that, or redirect it? How can we understand each other, listen to each other best? How can we hold each other? How can we renew our commitment to living generously with our differences? What can we do in our lives to stand up for each other, to be a contributing part of the collective?
How can theatre balance humour with difficult themes such as violence, trauma and rehabilitation?
There are ways in which humour can allow deeply difficult, painful, or shameful emotions to be felt. There is a rhythm, a physicality, a vocalisation to laughter that allows us to loosen the reins and relax control of ourselves emotionally, and in that state, we are able to experience truly dark things that we might otherwise shy away from. But those truly dark things exist whether we accept them or not. And for this kind of theatre, the question is not so much of balance between humour and those dark things, but the ways that humour is also inherent in them and can bring them to the forefront more easily. So really, laughter can open our eyes to the darkest realities of the world, then keep them open, so that theatre can ask the question: what now?
Why is now the right moment for audiences to experience this show?
Because a lot of us might be on the brink of losing freedoms we have only had for a few handfuls of years. Because others haven’t even been afforded them yet. Because it is more important than ever in most of our lives that we stand up for each other – that is no longer theoretical. And to do that we must be open to each other, we must learn the skills to understand each other, to listen and accept how horrendous some of our experiences have been. We have the luxury to look away, but why would we want to?
What do you hope audiences take away from the production?
We hope they take away a willingness to work together, a renewed vigour to understand each other and be a constructive part of something bigger. And perhaps the idea of taking the work seriously, but not yourself. Barely Human is a pretty bizarre experience, for something that is also deeply felt. With that kind of chaotic laughter and ridiculousness comes an acceptance of suffering and the beauty of all of life. From there, you can get to work.
Looking beyond the Fringe, what are your ambitions for Barely Human and for Far Between Theatre?
The life of this show feels like it is only just starting. We are planning to take Barely Human to Amsterdam next. We want to forge theatrical connections with the continent, so we are looking to other mainland European stops, too. And we hope to bring the show back to a major Fringe festival in the UK for a longer run. Far Between is currently in pre-production for another big play and we’ll be open to inspiration for more projects after this. Besides our own shows, we also produce other creators’ work that we feel fits under our mission statement. Recently, we did the production for Reel Life for writer-performers Levenka Andrea and Ian Chapman Black – a hilarious and eerie physical theatre piece harkening back to the silent film era, which got great reviews. We have also taken our first steps into education this year. We’re very excited about our approach to envisioning Shakespeare anew, in different settings and with different focuses, both digging up the and respecting the text as it has been passed down, and we love engaging students in that.
Questions for Eva:
What first inspired the character of Eva and what drew you to telling her story?
I wanted her to be like a sister version of me: an alternate-universe Eva, which is why I gave her the same name. She’s an Eva that succumbs to all her deep, dark knowledge and experience of violence, and can ultimately do nothing but perpetuate it. No matter how lovely she is, no matter how righteous. Looking around us, it seems to be an easy thing to fall into. I wanted to know why.
In the play, redemption and rehabilitation are acted out as a sort of performance, what made you want to explore these topics in this way?
Redemption and rehabilitation need other people. And they can only truly happen when we are honest. I wanted audience members to experience the way they, personally, and we, collectively, process violence and redemption. The cabaret setting artificially creates a situation of possible redemption and rehabilitation for Eva. She has a captive audience (prison pun intended), and those sixty minutes in the theatre become a confessional. Of course, it is ultimately up to the audience whether she is redeemed.
What artistic influences helped shape your unique style and tone?
In terms of theatre, I am influenced by clown, Grotowski, (continental European) cabaret, and Meisner. The Master and Margarita by Bulgakov was a hugely influential book for me. Phenomenology as a way to approach understanding. When it comes to playwrights: Shakespeare – this might seem obvious, but considering I didn’t properly encounter him until my mid-twenties, I do mean that –, Sarah Kane. Viola Davis as an actor and human. In terms of musical theatre, there are Cabaret (as in, the Kander & Ebb musical) and The Wild Party (the Lippa musical). I have done work with people at the end of their lives and am starting training as a death doula. And I recently connected deeply with Yiyun Li’s book Things In Nature Merely Grow. The play moves between comedy, cabaret and psychological drama - what challenges and opportunities does this present to you as both writer and performer? It allows me to tap into something that I think is inherent in life: its absurdity and the deep care we should have for each other. If we are all thrown into existence like this, what the heck are we doing fighting each other about it?
What does it mean to explore themes of violence, identity and feminine rage through theatre and what does that look like?
Something I love about theatre is that it uses the whole being for its storytelling: the heart, the mind, the soul, the body. The primitive, the cerebral. The feelings, the movements, the thoughts, the words, the sounds. Using a female body on stage is such a political thing in itself. How easy is it for us to lose sight of women as whole human beings? We objectify them, chop them up and consume the bits separately. I use my words, my actions, my feelings and my body to both show and resist that. I tell stories of dehumanisation and I undress myself partially. I have agency. I defy being made into an object unless on my own terms. But it still will happen. This show makes me struggle doing that live on stage, and interestingly enough, also sometimes in its marketing.
Stepping into this role for a second run, has your relationship with Eva or your understanding of the piece changed in any way?
I keep finding new nuances in it, moments that move me in a different way, that take on new meaning as I or the world change. Just a few days ago, one of the main images in the play, of (I’ll keep it vague) a woman forced into physical stillness by an immediate threat, hit me anew. I suddenly saw it as one physicalised example of a larger phenomenon, whereby people behave within very small, set spheres of acceptability on the threat of social isolation and/or physical violence. Eva is in some ways a lovely place to go: she’s expressive, naughty, brave, playful and warm. But in many ways, she’s a shadow version of me. She carries the things I struggle with. I mean, that’s why I wrote her – to try to work out questions I grapple with about violence, redemption, and identity. So my relationship to her changes as I grow around those things.
Performing solo work demands a unique relationship with the audience - how do you approach building that connection?
It is quite something to walk into a dark room with limited knowledge of what’s about to happen and let a stranger talk to you and ask you questions and make you feel things. I don’t take that lightly. In order for an audience to be vulnerable like that, I have to build trust. To show that I as the performer am in control, even when the character is unpredictable. That I am not putting anyone at any social risk that they don’t consent to or that would be difficult to recover from. And that I am also willing to be vulnerable. Partially, the writing constructs that trust through worldbuilding, playing with the rhythm of predictability and unpredictability, and letting the audience get used to and empathise with the character before we fully go off the deep end. Partially, I do that through being present with the people in the room, so I can improvise with what comes at me.
What has been the most rewarding, or most challenging, aspect of bringing Barely Human to the stage?
The most rewarding aspect has been the audience’s presence, involvement, and reactions, both during the show and after. They way people engage with the ideas of the piece and the ambiguous feelings that it brings up. People have said afterwards that the show has been the weirdest and coolest thing they’ve seen in a while, that it made them laugh and wonder, that it moved them, made them uncomfortable, and empowered them. And during the show, how they engage with Eva, how they want to care for her, but also find her weird and intimidating. During the first run, I, as the character, confided to someone in the room that no one really likes me, and he looked me in the eyes with great feeling and said ‘no’. As in, he totally understood why, but still felt bad for me. That cracked me (the performer) and the whole room up. And it was a great example of the duality of reactions that Eva’s potential redemption arc brings up. The most challenging aspect is wearing the many hats of a fringe show, especially a one-person one. The trickiest bit is to keep switching between creative and production roles. Self-directing, rehearsing alone, and rewriting, while marketing, and doing parts of stage managing, some co-producing, et cetera. A lot of that was thankfully relieved by the main producer, David Martinez, on this run. And it helped immensely that we had incredibly generous donations to our Crowdfunder – that took a lot of the pressure off financing things like rehearsal space, rehearsal time, participation in the Camden Fringe, theatre hire, insurance, props, and so on. For the first time for this show, I will even be able to pay myself something for the creative work!
What do you hope audiences are thinking about after they’ve seen the show?
A thought a lot of people were expressing to me after the first run was “How does your brain work?” Directly after that thought, though, I’d love it if people were thinking about the plasticity of violence. Having worked on this show a lot now, I get the sense that it’s like those wildfires that go underground: they travel below the surface, sometimes for years, even if it’s freezing up there, and then flare up somewhere seemingly unconnected when they get enough oxygen. I want us to think about how we can disrupt that process. They could also be thinking about how to ask about and listen to the experiences of others (and themselves) that we don’t always see; experiences that seem so ingrained into our day-to-day lives that they’re like the water we swim in.
Looking ahead, what are your ambitions for Barely Human and what kinds of stories are you hoping to tell next as an artist?
I think that Barely Human is only just beginning its life. We’re planning to go to Amsterdam with it, and perhaps extend those connections with the mainland into other cities, and then come back to the UK for a longer run. I’m also currently gathering thoughts and material for a new show about belonging and consuming, this time likely with more than one main character. Artistically, I am fascinated by this interplay between live creation through audience interaction, laughter in the dark and absurd, and the heightened world of song and music. So, I will probably keep exploring that space in the near future.