We sat down for an exclusive interview with actress and writer Abbey Gillett and director Elsa Strachan to discuss I Dreamt You Differently, a topical play about ambition and its value, dreams and desires, and the importance of inter-generational communication.
This show runs from 5th-30th August at the Edinburgh Fringe – Tickets here
- I Dreamt You Differently explores ambition through a father and daughter who see
success very differently; what first inspired that relationship?
AG: My own Dad is a really inspiring character. He had an uncompromising vision for what he
wanted to achieve in life, he set out to pursue it with the passion & energy of an artist chasing a
dream, except he sold photocopiers. As an artist, I have that same drive, the same ambition,
and my dreams seem more glamorous yet how they manifest is, in many ways, a much harsher
reality to contend with. This dissonance is what inspired me to create Billy and Mariella. It’s such
fertile ground for drama! It also taps into how different generations measure success – as an
artist, expressing something honest that other people can connect with is intangible but also
deeply valuable. A motivated salesman may not value that outcome in the same way.
- The play asks where our ambitions come from—do you think our dreams are shaped
more by our families or by our own experiences?
ES: Growing up in the middle of nowhere undoubtedly fueled my creativity. My sister and I
always relied on our imaginations to keep us entertained! This experience fuels why and how I
make theatre now. My dream of powerful, playful theatre being accessible to all is because of
my own experiences, for sure!
AG: I think the play explores both sides. My parents saw me light up after going to community
dance classes and they nurtured my creativity. So in that sense my dreams, however big, feel
somehow possible because of my family. But getting inspired to make art, specifically, is such a
personal endeavor. It’s you trying to work out, express, and share something about your own
experience. It’s both!
- Music sits at the heart of the story; what can songs reveal about Mariella that dialogue
alone cannot?
AG: As a performer the songs feel like a relief in a way, because rather than explaining
Mariella’s experience with words I can just conjure the feeling. As the playwright and songwriter
it was always so important to me for Mariella to sing acapella. It’s definitely exposing and
vulnerable, but that’s what makes it impactful.
ES: In art there’s no rhyme or reason sometimes why you connect to something, and using
music in our production celebrates that wonderful intangible quality that live work gives you.
Music has a way of cutting though to a feeling in a way that words sometimes can’t. Songs can
conjure an unfiltered, untampered feeling that is far more honest and raw. For Mariella, it’s a
stronger way of communicating a lot of the time.
- Milk + Mallet specialise in finding playful, theatrical ways to tell naturalistic
stories—how did that approach shape this production?
ES: The design on this show, by the brilliant Lucinda Plummer, is so important to our production.
At the top of the show, Mariella comes out and uses chalk to draw out her space. There’s paper
everywhere, there’s an extensive sound world in this play beyond just the singing. Everything
about the play embraces theatrical form in that it shows you just enough to spark your
imagination so that the audience can fill in the blanks and bring themselves to it.
We don’t believe a piece of theatre is complete without its audience, so we’re constantly thinking
about the active role the audience have in bringing our productions to life.
- The show balances joy, humour and heartbreak; how did you navigate those different
tones as both writer and performer?
AG: As a writer, a Father-Daughter relationship gives you so much for free. So much is shared –
your sense of humour, your history, your pain, your little idioms. Family dynamics are such a rich
tapestry of emotions and I adore writing the familiarity of their dialogue. Their references,
nicknames, in-jokes are so specific and I really enjoyed building such a historical bond between
characters without having to explain it too much. As a performer, working with Andrew
Pearson-Wright makes those tonal shifts a breeze. We both embrace a real playfulness as
performers, which also makes the more emotionally taxing moments of the show quite striking.
Elsa runs a room with a thoughtfulness and lightness of touch, that I feel so safe and enabled to
dance between both the light and heavy.
- As Milk + Mallet make their Edinburgh Fringe debut, what are you most excited to
discover about sharing this story with Fringe audiences?
ES: This play taps into a conversation happening across generations at the moment, about how
different generations have contending visions of success. Through Billy and Mariella we’re
exploring a spectrum of thoughts on that and it’ll be fascinating to see how artists as well as
local audiences respond.
AG: We see a lot of Father-Son or Mother-Daughter dynamics explored on stage, so I’m excited
to see how people respond to Mariella and Billy’s relationship. In addition to that, we’re a new
woman-led theatre company of ambitious, rigorous, motivated and skilled artists, who have
poured the realities of making work into this production. I really hope we discover how it
resonates with the other brilliant makers at the Fringe this year. We can chin-wag in Bristo Square after the show!