Winner of the inaugural Leodis Prize, Sanctuary is a reflective and time-shifting drama by Jacob Sparrow. Inspired by real events in a Suffolk village, where plans to open an AIDS hospice in the early 1990s were met with local resistance, Sanctuary is a deeply human story about safety – where we find it, who is allowed it and what it means to choose to live. It examines loneliness, the legacy of shame and the absence of a clear blueprint for queer lives.
Pleasance Dome (Ace Dome) from Wednesday 5th – Monday 31st August (not 17th) at 16:00.
https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/sanctuary
What inspired you to anchor Sanctuary in the real-life resistance to an AIDS hospice, and
how did you translate that history into a contemporary emotional landscape?
The story is set where I grew up; the backstory happened just before I was born in the early nineties when a woman tried to convert part of her house into an AIDS hospice but it was boycotted by the village. The part of the story I found most interesting wasn’t the response of the village but rather the desire of someone to try and make a space of safety for a community that was under threat. As a queer person from a rural place I experienced a lot of difficulty growing up and I found myself colouring locations and communities as places where it is not acceptable to be different. Sanctuary gave me the opportunity to explore people in those places who were trying to make a difference in small but meaningful ways, even when against the opinions of others.
How does the fluid, memory-like structure of the house shape the way past and present
interact in the storytelling?
The plot follows a man from London who has come to stay in the house; he is essentially a test subject to help set things up whilst the planning permission is awaiting approval. It’s a play about loneliness and the places we go within ourselves when we feel alone, and how memory and nostalgia can start as a comfort but quickly become oppressive. I thought a lot about the Glass Menagerie whilst writing and Tennessee Williams’ idea of memories being subjective and also taking a poetic license; altering facts based on feeling rather than reality. In Sanctuary, memory is something that can offer refuge but also be a trap, and how you get caught in a specific way of thinking and feeling about things.
In what ways does the protagonist’s return to the house act as a catalyst for confronting
suppressed memories and unresolved grief?
When an unexpected visitor arrives, Michael is forced to look at his own mortality and legacy. He is sick and he knows he is sick, and he has come to the house to wait for whatever time he has left. For so many LGBTQIA+ people during the AIDS epidemic (and even before that) the idea of getting and growing old was a fantasy, and so this visitor is almost a therapeutic catalyst of exploring the parts that are unresolved.
How do you balance the intimacy of a single-location setting with the broader social and
political themes around queer history and care?
I think there are brilliant plays out there that already explore the wide reach of the social and political climate of the time, and that dramatize those events in a theatrical way. I think I am more interested in when you take that historical backdrop and explore how it lives in the bodies of people and in locations you might not have considered. So many plays about queer lives are based in metropolitan areas or at the height of a significant event, and so Sanctuary sits in a time slightly later in the nineties (when AZT (HAART) had been introduced) and this sudden opportunity of survival, and the the impact and privilege of what that might look like.
What does the play suggest about how spaces themselves can hold memory, shame and
acts of survival?
The impact of shame on queer people is so greatly impactful and can alter the way we see ourselves. Shame can be silencing, and I was interested in the narrative of Sanctuary of what happens when you give it a voice. Being queer is often an act of survival, and the play looks at the cost of that survival but also what blueprint and legacy we have for the next generation. But also, it looks at the moments of joy; queer people have so consistently found community and light, and so the play also finds those moments of brightness and humour.
As a first play, what did winning the inaugural Leodis Prize give you the freedom to explore
in terms of voice, form and perspective?
Winning was a complete surprise and delight, and it has allowed me a greater confidence to explore my writing voice. This is my first play and I am keen to continue writing and develop my own language and experiences in writing, and I am very grateful to Leodis to have the support to do so.