Ongoing lockdowns have granted artists the space to begin new projects, as well develop existing ones. One project that was pulled out from the back of the cupboard this year to be dusted off and finalised is Sun Bear, a play written and performed by Sarah Richardson and directed by Aoife Spillane-Hinks as part of Axis Ballymun’s mentorship program for new writing.
The University Times spoke with Richardson via Zoom to hear more about the play and its resurrection during the pandemic. Richardson’s description is that the work is a “one-woman dark comedy show.” The play follows Katie, a woman “very much on the edge”, as her story unfolds via interactions with her workplace and co-workers.
Originally written over the Christmas period of 2019, a 30-minute version of the work was showcased at Scene + Heard (a festival dedicated to new writing), but the arrival of the pandemic quickly shed uncertainty onto the possibilities for the play’s future. Richardson recalls “not knowing where we were going to go with this – what we could do. So, just continued writing, finishing a full draft of the script”
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The play was given a mentorship for new writing by Axis Ballymun, and so Richardson began working on the project with Aoife Spillane-Hinks as a dramaturg. “Over six months, I had virtual chats with Aoife, and I would send her a script and then we would have a chat about it”, she says. The script went through three drafts before being awarded funding for a performance, and, in true pandemic style, has developed into a digital filmed recording to be streamed online to its audiences.
Richardson is grateful, however, that she was able to adapt the play to an online format. She highlights that “it’s a one-person show, so there was an element of not losing out as much as some other creatives may have done”. Writing the performance herself also meant that “when [she] wanted to hear it out loud, [she] was the one reading it.”
Also in conversation with The University Times, director and dramaturg Aoife Spillane-Hinks describes the show as “[taking] us through one woman’s disastrous day at work”. The play explores the trauma of an abusive relationship that “really knocked [Katie] off balance”, and the ways in which a suffering individual can still inflict pain on others.
Spillane-Hinks speaks of Richardson’s writing as “very honest about these issues and the ways in which these kinds of abusive behaviours work in relationships”, noting that the work caused her to look back on her own previous relationship experiences in a new light.
Speaking about her own creative process, Spillane-Hinks mentions how “there are different threads that are converging in” when it comes to honing a piece of work. These include basic elements of language, clarity, and structure, but also more complicated elements “that have to do with that particular writer’s style, aesthetic, point of view, and that go into articulating what the essence of the thing is that the writer is trying to capture”.
In regards to the online medium, Spillane-Hinks believes that while it lacks the sense of familiarity that comes with in-person theatre, “there are a lot of things you can do on zoom.” She elaborates that “sometimes it’s nice to be sitting in a space that’s only yours – if you want to take a break and you turn off your video for a moment, you’re on your own, which can be a relief”.
Both Richardson and Spillane-Hinks outline that the audience should expect an unapologetic character with plenty of moments for laughing, crying and thinking. Succinctly put, Spillane-Hinks describes the play as an “edgy, witty, honest story about contemporary life.”
Sun Bear will be streamed online from April 11th-13th. Tickets cost €5 and are available here.
