We sat down with Lea des Garets, the playwright behind GEORGE playing at Omnibus Theatre from 25th June to 14th July.
1839. French writer George Sand defies all rules through what she writes, what she wears and who she f*cks. But what will she sacrifice to be truly seen?
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What inspired you to create a show about George Sand and her relationship with Marie Dorval?
George Sand is a figure who has always intrigued me – I knew she was incredibly successful in her time, that she played with gender in the way she dressed and presented herself to the world and that she was sexually liberated. And when I started looking closer, I also found a lot of kinship in what she was advocating for — she was saying things that I find myself saying in conversations today, about equality, education, sexuality, gender (even though she didn’t have this word)…
In my research, I decided to find whether George Sand had had female lovers or not, as it was hinted at in a lot of the press of the time. I found Marie Dorval. There is an entire chapter dedicated to her in Sand’s autobiography. Many researchers call them lovers, showing their correspondence and analysing the love language they use with each other. They were called “the inseparables”. We have a record of Sand sending Dorval a letter after she first saw her on stage saying “in the theatre or in your bed, I simply must come and kiss you my lady or I shall do something crazy”; and apparently Dorval showed up to Sand’s doorstep saying “here I am!”. And yet it is one of those historical queer stories between two women that has gone down in history as “a great friendship”, you know?
There are a few years missing in their letters so I thought – using this correspondence and Sand’s autobiography, could I reimagine scenes between them? And show what this love story could be like? After having found Gabriel, Sand’s first play, I thought that since Marie worked in theatre, there was a great opportunity there to imagine the crossovers that could have occured.
How did you approach reimagining George Sand’s life and work for a modern audience?
After months of research, I organised a first week of R&D back in January 2022. I actually had a first mini R&D in the first 6 months with a good director friend of mine, to bounce off ideas. I am a collaborator, both as an actor and as a writer, and I needed other brains on the case, other voices in the room. All the more since this is a historically AND geographically remote story! During that R&D, we dedicated two days to round tables with a wide range of people, theatre-makers and non-theatre-makers. We had discussions around the themes “gender, identity and creativity” and “period drama/modern play”. What came out of the latter kept me on my toes for the rest of the writing: so much came out of it! I knew then that I wanted to write about Sand’s play Gabriel because I thought it was so incredibly relevant and modern, but I also wanted to talk about Sand herself. Thanks to these conversations, I started refining a way to hint at the period in the writing, whilst owning the modernity of it.
Can you tell us more about the significance of George Sand’s play, Gabriel, and how it reflects her views on gender and identity?
Gabriel (written in 1839) is about a young person in 17th century Italy, raised as a man by a grandfather who wanted to make sure that this side of the family would inherit the title and fortune. He is given an extremely patriarchal, women-hating education. At 17 years old, Gabriel finds out that he was actually born a woman, and that if this were to be revealed, he would lose everything. The play then follows Gabriel’s quest for justice as he tries to grasp why what is between his legs is so important, since he behaves as a perfect man to everyone: nothing has changed since his education (his gender performance is impeccable), why should his sex matter?
It is an incredible commentary on education and gender inequality, and on the way women and men are socialised.
Gabriel then falls in love with a man who can’t handle Gabriel presenting to the world as a man, who craves for him to be “a woman”. Gabriel has this beautiful line: “why will you not allow me to simply be?” And I think it sums it all up: it is a play (an 1839 play!!) which deeply questions gender performance, binarity, patriarchy and internalised homophobia.
To me it asks the question: can we create ourselves into the world? Away from any heteronormative, binary norms?
In what ways do you feel George Sand’s story and struggles are still relevant today?
What she questions with Gabriel encapsulates what she faced in her time: although she was a best-selling author, people were writing more about her appearance, her male garments and her love/sex life than about her actual writing. This is something that women still face today.
People could not get their heads around a woman who was doing what she wanted with very well-defined social codes, and so they often retaliated by shaming her and questioning her morality rather than focus on her work.
How did you incorporate historical accuracy into the show while also allowing for creative reinterpretation?
It has been quite a battle – but such a beautiful one! I started wanting to write about George Sand and so I read everything I could get my hands on, in terms of her work and academic research, listened to a gazillion podcasts, translating extracts and quotes I loved as I went, putting together the elements that resonated with me, with what I wanted to say about her… The hardest thing was to find an angle. And once I found Gabriel and the parallels with Sand’s story, adding in Dorval, I started focusing on plot. But I kept reading and researching, and rediving in my notes… and there was a point where I had to say to myself: “alright, I have done the research, and this is not a dissertation. I have to trust that story will be fuelled by all this knowledge.” At first the references to her life and the historical contexts in “GEORGE” felt forced, and then the more I worked on the play and workshopped it with various collaborators, the more I felt comfortable with creative licence — and the more these historical notes naturally incorporated themselves to the text.
What do you hope audiences will take away from GEORGE, particularly in relation to themes of gender and sexuality?
Ultimately, this is a play which, regardless of the era, of your gender identity, sexuality, age, invites you to be yourself. It shows the absurdity of a society which imposes rules and norms, and tries to shape individuals. It lays bare the dynamics at play in a patriarchal system — and in any kind of oppression.
Can you talk about the significance of GEORGE being part of the 96 Festival and its impact on queer arts?
The 96 festival is incredibly special: nowhere else in London have I found an all-under-one-roof festival celebrating queer artists and queer stories like this around Pride Month.
Marie McCarthy, the Artistic Director of the Omnibus theatre, does fantastic work in terms of representation and supporting of new writing, especially LGBTQIA+ theatre-makers!
What has been the most rewarding part of working on GEORGE for you personally as a writer and creator?
The collaboration! On all levels. From the very first informal R&D with my director friend in my flat, covering the walls in post-its, to the dramaturgical work done with the team at the Criterion Theatre for the Criterion New Writing Programme showcase of the first half of GEORGE last November, and the more recent work in the room rehearsing, every single interaction that I have had with fellow artists around this text has been so incredibly fulfilling. I keep being amazed at the way we can understand each other and build bridges around a story.
If you could have dinner with George Sand and Marie Dorval, what’s one question you’d love to ask them both?
What a great question! I would definitely ask them about the way they lived their love life in their time. The ways they had to hide, where they could be seen, how they had to navigate that… I grew up with a lot of older people from the LGBTQIA+ community, including some who lived in the fifties, sixties as gay men and women, and gender-non-confirming individuals… And these have always been fascinating and important stories to me. It makes it feel even more important to now be openly ourselves today, to invite a true visibility of a community that has always been there. It is not a new or a scary thing!