Inspired by this viral question, Man or Bear is a fast-moving, darkly comic play about fear, friendship and survival that follows three generations of women in the shadow of male violence. This is a story of resilience, humour and solidarity, offering a poetic and unsettling reflection on modern day misogyny. Man or Bear was developed closely through first-hand research and accounts of violence against women and co-created by Katie Hurley and Sarah Hehir in association with Croydonites Festival.
• What drew you to the viral “man or bear” question as a starting point, and how did it evolve into a wider exploration of fear and survival?
In some ways, the question is a flippant way into a deadly serious subject. Responses exposed the contradiction women and girls are living with: we’re told we have equality and yet violence against women and girls has been declared a national emergency, Roe v Wade has been overturned, girls in Afghanistan are denied education and misogyny flourishes openly online.
In our research, the ‘man or bear’ question became a hook into the everyday reality of fear. Whether women answered ‘man’ or ‘bear’, most understood the point: it is absurd that meeting a wild animal could feel safer than meeting another human being. Some men responded with curiosity and concern, others with dismissal and even threats. What emerged clearly was that many women feel unsafe and unheard. After all, if bears were the only threat to women, we could walk the streets of Edinburgh at night without fear.
• How did your research with charities and participants shape the authenticity and responsibility of the stories you’re telling?
From the start, we wanted to bring our own lived experience to the play while also reaching beyond that to develop the work with survivors, professionals, charity partners and other women and girls.
During our research year, we ran drama and creative writing workshops with women in Medway and Croydon, always with trained support in the room. We held early sharings for women and girls only, where we reflected on the material and took feedback on the stories and characters we were developing.
One of our first workshops took place near where Elianne Andam was murdered. That stayed with us throughout the process. We kept asking ourselves how to honour stories like hers by giving our female characters the space and complexity they deserve.
The response to the ‘work in progress’ performances was heartening. People told us the play was both entertaining and urgently important which was always our intention.
• In blending realism, music and physical theatre, how did you find the right language for expressing such complex and urgent themes?
Katie (co-creator/actor) and I share a love of character-based theatre with strong storytelling and a playful approach to staging. I’m a poet as well as a playwright, so rhythm and experimental language are as much a part of how I tell a story on stage as plot and conflict. I love the blend of the abstract and the kitchen sink.
Katie’s training in alternative forms, and the work she did on her Fringe show ‘You’re So F**KING Croydon!’, brought another layer to the process. Between us, we have our feet on the ground and our heads in the clouds.
What excited me most was how collaborative the play became. I was happy to put down my pen and watch other artists shape the story. Working with our director Ursula Martinez was the icing on the cake. She understood the show immediately and began weaving her own vision through it.
• How do you navigate balancing the show’s humour with its underlying anger and sense of threat?
To say this show is funny is true and important. But it’s not about a lightening of the subject matter or a need to make men feel comfortable or women less worried. The humour and the joy
comes from really getting to know these complicated, flawed and wonderful women and sharing their world for an hour.
The dark humour comes from the bear and our playfulness around this trope. If the bear is more of a threat than a man, then let’s bring in the bear. Or is it a man in a bear’s clothing? Hard to tell. Not all men. But which ones?
• What does bringing three generations of women together reveal about how experiences of misogyny shift—or persist—over time?
Misogyny rears its head in different ways in different societies at different times – but it’s always ugly. Having different generations of women from different cultural and social backgrounds involved in the early process, meant that we learnt from each other. Often the stories of our experience were sadly similar.
Sometimes the younger women were surprised by the freedoms experienced in the past and recognised a sliding backwards in attitudes. But they knew about red flags and had the language to speak about consent in a way that I never did.
Growing up during the sexual revolution was different to growing up in an age of the internet. Both have their advantages but both were mired by inequality and a prevailing narrative as told through the male gaze.
• What conversations or shifts in perspective do you hope audiences carry with them after leaving the show?
The audience makes a choice: to be passive and complicit or active in their resistance – both as observers in the theatre and as ambassadors in changing the narrative around violence against women and girls.
We hope that survivors of gendered violence will feel seen and supported and might seek help through our charity partners or other organisations we will flag.
We hope all audience members will leave the show feeling inspired to join the many voices highlighting that change for women and girls requires a fundamental and radical shift in the attitude of society, the media, the police and the legal system both here in the UK and across the world . We hope people will talk to family and friends, make podcasts, read books, sign petitions, teach their daughters and their sons.
Summerhall (Red Lecture Theatre) from Thursday 6th – Sunday 30th August (not 17th, 24th) at 13:45.