Do you love an Edinburgh Fringe show with a quirky title? Then this is one for you! A pair of newlyweds start to question their relationship when one of them becomes attached to a talking corpse they knocked over en route to their honeymoon. Expect some dark humour and a look at modern marriage in this rom-com gone wrong
A honeymoon couple hitting a woman with their car is a darkly comic premise that immediately raises the stakes to the extreme. What drew the creative team to that specific collision, both literally and metaphorically, as the catalyst for unpicking a marriage?
In development, we were drawn to the imagery we could create for a “Rom-Com Gone Wrong” type of story. Claire and Patrick are a picture-perfect couple checking the final boxes with a respectable wedding and a classic honeymoon at Niagara Falls. The Body takes place after they ride off into the sunset and the credits roll. We wanted the accident to isolate them and jar them into facing the immediate reality of marriage. Trapped deep in the woods with no lifeline but each other, they cannot ignore the body, gruesomely wrapped around a tree. The severity of the crisis and the ever-present dark imagery juxtaposed with the beautiful couple fresh from the altar flips the romance on its head and challenges their bond, for better or for worse.
The show is described as exploring denial simultaneously through the literal accident and the slow unravelling of a marriage built on compromise. How do you keep those two threads in balance dramatically, so one doesn’t overshadow or trivialise the other?
We are able to weave those threads together by telling the story with multiple points of view while keeping Claire at the centre in a morbid journey of self-discovery. Claire is deeply concerned about who the body was and their lost personhood, yet hesitant to take control, while Patrick’s focus remains on protecting himself and his new wife from the consequences of this horrible mistake. Their misalignment is a repeated argument amplified through the psychological spiral they experience as their brush with the dead turns verbal. Claire’s denial turns into confession as the fact of their accident sinks in and the audience sees the wrongness of this tragedy concurrently spotlighted with the wrongness of the relationship and Claire’s role in it.
The plot pivots when the woman they’ve hit starts talking, and Claire’s attraction to her begins to reshape everything. How did you approach writing and staging that shift, and what does Megan’s presence in the story allow you to explore that Claire and Patrick’s dynamic alone couldn’t?
Megan is the ultimate wedge in Claire and Patrick’s small cracks. Throughout the play, we see both the disagreement between Claire and Patrick over how to handle a dead body, and an inner look into their psyches through isolated asides with Megan. Their ability to express their fears, doubts, and panic to Megan serves as a window into their minds, revealing to the audience a richer context on the failings of their partnership. Megan acts as both confidant and divulger for Patrick, and more so Claire, forcing a confrontation of personality and morality to highlight how such failings can become truly disastrous not only for a couple but anyone who may step in their path.
Tom’s work sits at the intersection of comedy, suspense, and horror, drawing from theatre of the absurd. How do you calibrate that tonal cocktail in the writing, and what does absurdity let you say about very real human experiences like insecurity and self-deception that a more straightforward drama couldn’t?
The delicious thing about the genre blend Tom can accomplish is it allows us to turn everything up a notch to create something simultaneously familiar and unpredictable. We are working with dialogue that feels natural and accessible; it will ping most as eerily similar to classic fights with a partner. Yet, this isn’t an average argument, not only because the stakes are higher, but also because we have a dead body, letting the audience in on the doubts and insecurities we are constantly afraid our partner is feeling. By leaning into the humour, aesthetic, and unease of the story, we simulate the anxiety and dread that come when your life has been irreparably altered, and you realise you will never be the same.
UR MEAN KATHLEEN has built its identity around putting women at the centre of bold, challenging narratives. How does Claire’s journey in this piece reflect or develop that broader artistic mission, and what does it mean to follow a character toward self-discovery through such extreme and darkly comic circumstances?
Like our six soiled doves in SALOON GIRLS, our first Fringe show, we showcase a woman who has been shaped by deep-seated expectations yet she embraces a full spectrum of emotion, humour, and peculiarity throughout her story, true to the feminine experience. Her positive, if at times bizarre, attachment to another woman in this situation aids her in finally breaking free of heteronormative compulsion to defer to a partner for safety and stability. Ur Mean Kathleen is excited to tell stories where vital introspection is found in unlikely places, and where our characters can strive for more, becoming themselves fully. Claire’s journey carries a truth many of us have struggled with: finding security within oneself is far more sustainable than being stuck in something that isn’t quite right.
Your Edinburgh debut won the Derek Award for Hidden Gem of the Fringe and the Fringe Theatre Award. How does it feel returning with a second show, and does that recognition change the pressure or the freedom with which you approach bringing new work to the festival?
The warmth we received last year energised us for this new project. Last year proved to us that bringing together our talented peers and investing in ambitious work is a worthwhile cause, and we are so grateful to have grown Ur Mean Kathleen from those seeds of confidence. Yet, we are looking forward to what we will learn with a brand new work that stands apart from the style of SALOON GIRLS. This time around, we are asking our audience to come on a psychological journey with us rather than a societal and historical exploration. This challenge is one we face eagerly with total belief in the script and our team and we hope anyone who loved our previous show trusts we are bringing something just as bold and engaging.
The Body I Left in Susquehanna National Forest is at the Edinburgh Fringe at theSpace @ Niddry Street from 7 – 22 Aug (not 16) at 9:15pm. Ticket information here: https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/the-body-i-left-in-susquehanna-national-forest