A brand-new production from Hull-based Silent Uproar, Dead Girls Rising is an angry, joyous, punk protest that doesn’t pull any punches. Written by Maureen Lennon, with music and lyrics from Anya Pearson (international punk artist featured on BBC Radio 6 Introducing ), Dead Girls Rising is an explosive exploration of what it takes to live and survive within a violent patriarchy.
Dead Girls Rising will tour England and Scotland from 14 May – 11 June, taking in Pocklington Arts Centre; Cast, Doncaster; The Civic, Barnsley; Tron Theatre, Glasgow; The Traverse, Edinburgh; Marsden Mechanics’ The Cluntergate Centre, Hornbury; Northern Stage, Newcastle; Liverpool Arts Club; The Well, Hull; The Deaf Institute, Manchester and Sheffield Theatres.
- How would you describe Dead Girls Rising?
Dead Girls Rising is a fresh feminist take on the traditional ‘coming of age’ narrative. It’s rebellious, and fierce. It looks at how, for women, so much of growing up involves learning how you are not safe in the world and asks what coming to terms with this fear does to us as people. But although it’s about fear and power and violence, it’s also about joy and love and friendship. It’s about where we find hope. It’s about how we walk together into the sunrise.
- What is it like working with musician Anya Pearson to make this show?
Working with Anya has been the biggest dream! She is just the most incredible artist and I love what she’s created for the show. I’d made some original offers of lyrics and we had some big chats about the show and what the songs were within that world, and what they needed to feel like, then she went away and transformed them into something beyond all our hopes. The songs are so crucial within the form of Dead Girls and Anya understood that right from the beginning, and has brought so much wit and rigour to the process whilst creating really catchy and emotional tunes.
- Was it easy to bring a punk aesthetic to Greek mythology?
Basically yes! Greek drama feels very punk right? It’s not afraid to really go there. When we first started exploring The Furies and the trilogy The Oresteia, I couldn’t believe how relevant the themes and story was to all the conversations we were having today. It’s a story begun by the sacrifice of a girl, and ending with the creation of a justice system that values women less than men. To me it feels like the idea of the ‘dead girl’ is one of the pervading myths of our time, and one of the places it starts was there. But it wasn’t just inspiring thematically, it was also about the guts and horror and depths these stories go to. That felt punk to me.
- Tell us about the horror and the magic elements in the show
So this is a show that’s trying to look at violence in lots of different ways. Both how in its most magical theatrical sense it might offer possibilities of catharsis, but also the horror it carries in its most real and literal sense. The magic carries different parts of that journey throughout the show, I don’t want to say more than that, no spoilers here!
- Female Rage has become a big talking point – how do you use female rage in this show?
It’s an interesting question. The journey of The Furies as deities takes them from the personification of rage to having to renounce their anger and become merciful. Long term I’m not sure that’s worked out that well for them or us. So in this play we free them to be angry once more. But I also think the play is trying to complicate the idea of female rage a little bit. To ask questions about when it is a force for good, and when it is forced inward and calcifies into something bitter and more dangerous.
- You’re bringing the show to gig venues as well as theatre spaces on this tour – does that change the way audiences interact with the show?
Hopefully! I think this is a play that is really interested in exposing the nuts and bolts of storytelling. The Furies explicitly control the story, and break the fourth wall. They’re not interested in pretending the audience isn’t there. I’m really hopeful that being in gig venues, but also having the gig element in theatre spaces will give our audiences permission to engage with us in this way too. And at certain points in the play, this explicit acknowledgment of liveness, and the complicity that comes from all being in the space together becomes really important. I also just hope that by going to a range of venues we encourage lots of different people that the show is for them, and that hopefully we’re heading somewhere where they will feel comfortable coming along.
- Silent Uproar make work for audiences under 25, we also aim to bring a young(ish) perspective to theatre criticism – what do you think young audiences will relate to in this show?
I really hope they’ll relate to Katie and Hannah’s journey. The whole framing of the show is about what it is like to grow up in a world you haven’t created and how frustrating that can be. I think we like to believe we’re making progress all the time, but I actually think we’re experiencing a misogynistic backlash in lots of ways at the minute which is really frightening. Unfortunately I think this means the issues about power, violence and fear which the play deals with will feel all too relevant for young people today.