Hannah Caplan is a writer and visual artist working across painting, ceramics and fibre art. THIS IS NOT ABOUT ME. is her debut play, with her visual practice directly informing the production’s hand-crafted set and material language. We sat down with Hannah to discuss her upcoming performance.
THIS IS NOT ABOUT ME. will run at Soho Theatre (Upstairs) from 25th March to 18th April, running for 70 minutes. For more information and tickets, visit https://sohotheatre.com/events/this-is-not-about-me/. The show will then transfer to at 59E59 Theaters in New York City in May.
This Is Not About Me places a writer onstage who is actively shaping – and arguably reshaping – a shared relationship. What first drew you to the ethical tension between storytelling and ownership? Was this play born from a curiosity about memory, or from a concern about control?
God, it would be brilliant if it had been born from something high-minded… This play was actually born out of a really base, non-intellectual place; fuelled by Pro-Plus and a clawing need to make Dougie laugh.
But once I had a third or fourth draft, I started to get properly pretentious with it. I put on a turtleneck and read Jean Baudrillard; however, it really did just start with sex jokes and giggling.
What slowly emerged through the writing process became a much knottier question about who “owns” a shared experience. The play follows Grace staging her version of a relationship in front of the person who lived it with her. I became fascinated by the way memory is rarely shared in quite the same way between two people. So, the narrative of exploring what happens when someone you care for doesn’t recognise themselves in your version of events felt exciting and dramatic, and probably something that a lot of people have experienced in one form or another.
Grace frames the act of writing as processing and repair, yet Eli increasingly challenges her right to tell the story. Do you see the play as a critique of autobiographical art-making – or as a defence of it? Where do you personally sit within that debate?
I don’t think the play lands neatly on one side. I’m deeply suspicious of anyone claiming objectivity, including artists. I think it’s normal to make art in response to your experience of life. That’s certainly how we start, drawing crayon pictures of our families standing outside our homes, with labelled names for clarity. Personally, I can’t imagine how I could make art that wasn’t a reflection of the people I love, the music I listen to and the things that make me laugh. I think all art is autobiographical, every painting is a self-portrait, just some are more abstract than others.
What would be messy, however, would be conflating autobiographical art with truth or reality.
The production makes the act of writing visible through live typing, film and multimedia. How important was it for you that the audience witnesses the mechanics of authorship rather than simply consuming a finished narrative?
When I’m writing, I try not to think about the audience, or I think I’d go mental. Normally I’m thinking about Amaia, Dougie and Francis, and what will be fun for them to work with.
That said, I liked the idea that the story never feels fully settled. You watch Grace typing it into existence, sometimes changing it mid-flow, which is slightly exposing. The live text and film mean you’re aware of the edits as they happen so it’s like you can feel the narrative shifting as you watch; you’re never entirely sure whether you’re watching memory or invention.
In terms of authorship, I don’t think I’ll ever get over the transcendentality of creating. It’s a very special process that I am so grateful to get to experience. I tend to write about it because it means so much to me.
Your background as a fibre artist directly informs the hand-crafted, crocheted set design. How does working materially – through thread, texture and physical craft – influence the way you construct emotional narratives on the page?
Fibre arts have taught me about the importance of craft, of practice and of learning from our elders. Writing is a skill I am developing and am constantly making mistakes in. I get better by continuing to do it and learning from people who have been doing it longer than me.
With fibre, you’re looping thread through itself, building something slowly, sometimes unpicking it when you realise you’ve gone wrong. It’s patient and occasionally humbling, which feels very similar to writing. When you watch Grace working through her version of events, she’s doing something comparable – adjusting, tightening, occasionally distorting the shape of things.
There’s something vulnerable about seeing the labour in something handmade. You can see where it’s been stitched together. I wanted the world of the play to feel like that too – visibly constructed, human, and honest about the effort it takes to turn experience into something shareable.
The play has been described as “a romcom with fangs.” How consciously were you engaging with the conventions of romantic storytelling, and at what point did you decide to tear that genre open rather than simply inhabit it?
Yes, Lynn Gardner wrote better copy about our play than we did so huge shout out to her!
One of the first things I knew about this script was that it was going to be non-linear. So I read as many non-linear plays and screenplays as I could find in order to figure out how they work. I noticed quite quickly that the vast majority of commercially successful non-linear plays and screenplays were variations on the romcom: Annie Hall, (500) Days of Summer, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and arguably Harold Pinter’s Betrayal.
I think perhaps, in order to go along with the conceit of non-linearity, audiences need the universality of the love story and the relief of comedy; otherwise it all becomes a bit too much head and not enough heart.
After I had written my version of the non-linear romcom, I brought it to Dougie, who said: “Hannah, I love it, but this is not a love story. It’s a horror.” We started to blend those genres from there.