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BY DEBORAH BRUCE DIRECTED BY ROXANA SILBERT
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WELCOME It’s a particular joy to be presenting Ruby Thomas’ second play. Her first play, Either, opened my first Downstairs season in September 2019, and was loved by audiences. We immediately commissioned The Animal Kingdom which would have been seen long before now but for the pandemic. Later that autumn, Ruby was one of the winners of the Channel 4 Playwrights’ Scheme, which placed her on attachment to Hampstead. Despite the pandemic that attachment was mutually enriching, and the very close relationship it fostered is sure to bear further fruit. Hampstead Downstairs only exists thanks to a small band of philanthropists whose support is built around Celia Atkin’s extremely generous multi-year gift. We are immensely grateful to every supporter - but a relationship to celebrate particularly here is that between the Godwin family and Ruby’s work. We had sent the Godwins Either long before it went into production and they were – as a family – captivated by it. They supported the play and took a genuine interest in the production process, and it’s wonderful that they have decided to continue their support of this young writer and her second play. Since Hampstead started to produce in the studio a decade ago it has been the the generosity of donors like the Godwins that has enabled Downstairs to become an essential part of the London theatre scene and a major resource for the emerging playwright. Ruby’s play is the seventieth world premiere Downstairs – seventy plays that might never have otherwise been seen. I’m personally delighted to welcome Lucy Morrison to Hampstead for the first time to direct this play. Lucy has attracted an excellent creative team and a top flight cast featuring many old friends, so I know we are in for something special.
ROXANA SILBERT ARTISTIC DIRECTOR
THE
DAVINA MOSS
INTERVIEW
DM | How did you arrive at the idea of using family therapy as the basis for a play? RT | Maybe I’m weird, but I find other people’s therapy very compelling (from fictitious shows like In Treatment to Susie Orbach’s books and my major Esther Perel addiction). It occurred to me that therapy and theatre in particular have lots in common. Both are driven by drama and conflict. Both are about trying to piece together a narrative. Both are arguably exercises in empathy. And both are live—we are all effectively trapped in that room, facing something. The “family play” is such a big trope, I guess on some level I was interested in eliding the two. DM | Did you have to do much research on how family therapy actually works? RT | I always think research is a bit of a balancing act. Ultimately this is theatre, not a TED Talk, and it’s easy to get lost in the mire. But I did have a brilliant conversation with a family therapist early on, and in the rehearsal room we had a visit from the wise and delightful Pete Holloway (the country’s only Consultant Drama Therapist, who works a lot with groups and families). Most invaluable was my wonderful mum, who is a counsellor and has worked extensively with young people and couples. She gave me lots of great notes! DM | You describe the setting as a ‘pressure cooker’ – and there’s a clear tension between the form, which is like the vessel itself, and the dissonant material within. Can you talk about how that works…? RT | I guess to me the form and the content speak to each other, in the sense that the rigidity of the sessions and the space
reflect the “captivity” Sam finds himself in (both emotionally and literally). I wanted both the characters and the audience to feel a degree of pressure at having to confront the themes of the play. These characters are being compelled to listen to one another and try to see from different perspectives, and so are we. DM | There’s a huge difference – almost a difference of genre - between this play and your last play, Either. Is that just the different material requiring differing approaches or is it indicative of where you are as a writer? RT | It’s funny you should say that because I don’t see them as being that different. But maybe that’s because they both came out of my brain! They demanded different formal approaches, but I think they share a concern with trying to see from multiple perspectives and find a way to love someone when you don’t always understand or agree with them. That said, it’s very hard to talk about my own plays with any objectivity. I hope I am always evolving as a writer, but I’m probably the last person who could say precisely how or why. DM | Do you relish the opportunity to attack something in a new manner? RT | Always! DM | Tell me about the title – The Animal Kingdom - and how it resonates through the play…? RT | Partly it came from an idea about communication: the remarkable fact that even the members of a family can struggle to speak each other’s language, to the point of feeling like they are from different species at times. Then there was the
HAMPSTEAD THEATRE’S LITERARY MANAGER TALKS TO THE WRITER
RUBY THOMAS formal idea of enclosure, of trapping a group of humans in one place and watching their dynamics play out. I was also somewhat interested in the question of where emotional pain and suffering come from: the extent to which they can be seen as chemical, genetic, environmental, evolutionary. Ultimately, of course, it’s also about Sam, who struggles with life as a human being. I wanted to try to find a sensitive metaphorical way into what it means to find life very hard and not quite know why. DM | At the heart of the play there is Sam. Where did the character come from – and in your mind, does he stand for more than himself? RT | What a great philosophical question, where do character’s come from?! I wish I knew. On some level Sam must come from inside me, although it doesn’t always feel that way. To me all the characters feel very real and I have lots of affection for them, even when they get things wrong. I suppose in some way Sam is a tribute to anyone who has felt like they don’t belong, cannot function easily in our brutal society, or don’t always feel like they want to go on with life. Sometimes I think we try to bury or run from things like self-harm and suicidal ideation because they are frightening to us in a primitive, existential way. But if we took the time to listen properly and not jump in to judge or advise, we might realise these feelings are not as alien as they seem. Having said all that, Sam is not intended to be a symbol. In the end he is just Sam, embodied by the wildly talented Ragevan Vasan.
DM | Is that the case with all the characters? The title suggests that perhaps they are representative of different types… RT | As I say, I don’t think of the characters as symbols, although there is something intriguing about the assumptions we make about the archetype of “mother” or “son” etc. There’s that old writing adage that the more specific a story is, the more universal it can feel. I wonder if that’s why we’re so fascinated by family stories. All of us have been a child and/or parent and/or sibling, so even if we are totally perplexed by the family on stage and spend the whole play thinking, “what terrible people, I would never do that!” there is hopefully always something cathartic or intriguing about the experience. The nature and the tension of being a human animal is that we are all simultaneously so similar and so unique.
RUBY THOMAS
WHY DON’T YOU LISTEN? According to the OED, the verb “to hear” is defined as “perceive with the ear the sound made by someone or something,” whereas to “listen” is defined as “make an effort to hear something; be alert and ready to hear something.” So, whilst it may not be necessary to listen with concentrated attention all the time – such as during casual conversations – listening is important when talking with people who matter or when someone is talking about something that is important. Our early life experience is shaped by the approval or disapproval that we receive for saying or doing certain things. Parents can
heard, which leads to their not sharing thoughts and feelings, which in turn damages full communication. Not being heard limits responsiveness in all areas of life: when people are not heard, they feel isolated. And the simplest things, like an unreturned phone call, can trigger feelings of rejection: it can be particularly hurtful when others are too busy to even recognise the need to communicate, especially when that need feels urgent. Not being listened to is especially hurtful when those involved are the emotionally close. Recognition makes a person grow stronger. Listening and being listened to can
THE CLOSER A PERSON’S RELATIONSHIP TO THE LISTENER, THE LESS LIKELY IT IS THEY WILL BE LISTENED TO CAREFULLY shape their children’s self-perception through active listening which supports developing selfesteem. Inappropriate parental statements, however, can contribute to a child feeling uncertain, requiring outside approval for their choices and not sharing their thoughts - this can affect their personality. Human beings are not born with a complete, identifiable ‘self’: it is built through the ways in which they are heard and responded to from infancy. Being understood is therefore of critical importance and verbal interactions with others are key to self-definition. A secure child is more likely to develop into an open and trusting adult. And human relationships function through talking and listening, ideally with a balanced engagement between equal parties. Listening is therefore key to the development of healthy relationships – both with ourselves and with others. Mutual understanding is generally arrived at verbally. It is normal to share experiences with others by talking about oneself and having someone listen. Empathic listening helps people feel appreciated, without being judged. But people are diminished by not being
demonstrably improve our mental – and sometimes even our physical – well-being. So why don’t people listen? Firstly, listening is not easy. People often believe they are listening, whilst not recognising that they are doing no more than merely hearing what the other party is saying. Listening is hard work which takes time and effort. Active listening can require great self-control. The process is complicated by interference from feelings and attitudes, by an opinion of the speaker or experience of their typical manner of expressing themselves (whether they are truthful and clear, say, or whether they tend to exaggerate). It can also be hard to focus when there are strong visual or auditive distractions (mobile phones, the radio or television, other people). The same obviously applies to internal distractions, as instead of listening, people’s minds can wander towards things that preoccupy them, whether serious or trivial. Most people are aware of the dangers of distraction and try to eliminate external stimuli when they are trying to concentrate on their work, but a
conversation is seldom given the same priority. So, whilst a listener may be physically present, they may be mentally unavailable. Then, the closer a person’s relationship to the listener, the less likely it is they will be listened to carefully - especially over time. This is called closeness communication bias and it can place considerable strain on relationships. People have an unconscious tendency to ‘tune out’ because they have a preconceived idea of what the other person is going to say. As a result, they actively pay more attention to strangers’ perspectives, because they are unfamiliar, whilst with family members or close friends, they tend to rely on their own perspective, assuming that they will understand what is being said because of the close relationship. This is like driving the same route repeatedly: the familiarity is such that signposts and scenery no longer register. For some, listening can be like a burden taken on to create an opportunity to be listened to. Obviously, all listening implies a readiness to respond, but some listeners have lost interest and want to interrupt to give an opinion, advice, or tell their own story. Sometimes listeners are just waiting their turn to speak and crafting in their minds what it is they are going to say – adopting the posture of listening in order to prepare responses. This process of taking control of a conversation by interrupting with a story or a different perspective, whilst it results from a completely natural impulse, needs to be restrained as far as possible. Obviously if an individual - and their perspective – are to be respected, they need to be listened to properly. Then, not respecting the perspective of others is surprisingly common when the speaker is sharing something that is upsetting or if they are unhappy. Their pain makes the listener uncomfortable. In order to make the person to feel better - and to minimise personal discomfort – there’s an inclination to tell them how to address their unhappiness.
Thus, when a person is explaining the source of their problems, the disrespectful listener tends to say things like, “You’ll get through this” or “Things will look up.” In their urge for matters to be resolved, they can thereby unintentionally invalidate that person’s feelings. Strong emotional responses also influence our ability to listen. Perceived criticism triggers people’s emotions and the natural reaction is to switch off rational listening and shut down. People find it extremely difficult to remain open when under attack. Strongly disagreeing with what one hears also triggers emotional switches, and the tendency can become to respond right away without listening to the interlocutor’s entire reasoning: rejecting what is said by expressing a contrary opinion becoming paramount. Tolerating conflict arouses feelings of being threatened, but proper, attentive listening involves letting go of dearly held positions, if only temporarily, and allowing a loss of control despite the strong emotional response provoked by disliking what is being said. Finally, boredom makes listening actively extremely difficult. Even if the subject is important to the speaker, the listener might not think it interesting or important. And although not everybody is capable of expressing themselves in a way that will hold their interlocutors’ interest, they still need to be heard. It is important, then, that we relearn how to listen attentively. And that can be a question of practice: eschewing distractions, disregarding the status of the speaker, putting aside personal opinions, supressing emotional responses, and then simply tuning completely into the speaker and listening. Everybody should try it regularly and try to gauge the effect on their own sense of wellbeing. They will also find that the effect on the speaker – and their relationship with the speaker - can be transformative.
RAGEVAN VASAN, ASHNA RABHERU & LUCY MORRISON
PAUL KEATING
RAGEVAN VASAN
JONATHAN MCGUINNESS, LUCY MORRISON & RUBY THOMAS
JONATHAN MCGUINNESS, MARTINA LAIRD & ASHNA RABHERU
SIMON ROBSON (CECIL SHARP)
MARTINA LAIRD
ASHNA RABHERU
LUCY MORRISON
JONATHAN MCGUINNESS
PAUL KEATING & MARTINA LAIRD
RAGEVAN VASAN
CAST AND CREATIVE TEAM RUBY THOMAS WRITER
Ruby is an actor and writer. She received a Jerwood Commission from the Royal Court in 2021 and was on attachment at Hampstead Theatre with the Channel 4 Playwrights’ Scheme 2020. She was also part of the long-form Writers’ Group at the Royal Court (2018/19) and Soho Theatre Writers’ Lab (2016/17). In 2020 she wrote and performed a piece for the Royal Court’s Living Newspaper. She is currently developing plays for the Royal Court, Annapurna and Hampstead Main Stage and a stage musical for ATG and Gold Circle Films. For television, she is developing projects with Fearless Minds and Moonage and writing on the second season of Dangerous Liaisons for Starz. Previous work at Hampstead Theatre includes Either (Hampstead Downstairs).
LUCY MORRISON DIRECTOR Lucy is an Associate Director at the Royal Court. Recent directing work for the Royal Court includes Maryland; Scenes with girls; The Woods; Lights Out/It’s All Made Up/The Space Between (The Site Programme); MANWATCHING; Plaques & Tangles; Who Cares; Pests and Product (all Clean Break Theatre Company, Traverse/European tour). Other theatre work includes Elephant (Birmingham Rep); Billy the Girl and This Wide Night (both Clean Break Theatre Company, Soho); Little on the inside (Clean Break Theatre Company, Almeida Festival/Summerhall); it felt empty when the heart went at first but it is alright now (Clean Break Theatre Company, Arcola); Fatal Light and Doris Day (both Soho).
PAUL KEATING DANIEL Theatre work includes My Night with Reg (Turbine Theatre); Little Miss Sunshine and Kenny Morgan (both Arcola); The Goodbye Girl (The Gatehouse); The Wizard of Oz (London Palladium); Tick Tick Boom (Duchess); Blowing Whistles (Leicester Square); Cinderella (Old Vic); Little Shop of Horrors (Duke of York’s/Menier Chocolate Factory); Gladiator Games (Theatre Royal, Stratford East); Don Carlos (Gielgud); A Little Night Music (Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, USA); The Full Monty (Prince of Wales); Closer to Heaven (Arts); Assassins (New End); La Cava (Piccadilly) and Tommy (Shaftesbury). Film work includes Jesus Christ Superstar and Bring Me the Head of Mavis Davis. Short film work includes Isodate; Birthday Boy; Heterosexuality and Strip. Television work includes Casualty; Against the Law; Humans; Holby City; Injustice; EastEnders; Lawless – Prostitutes; Metrosexuality; Ambassador; Pen Pics and The Bill.
MARTINA LAIRD RITA
Theatre work includes King Hedley II and Bad Blood Blues (both Theatre Royal, Stratford East); All’s Well That Ends Well and Romeo and Juliet (both Shakespeare’s Globe); Shebeen (Nottingham Playhouse); Coriolanus; The White Devil; Three Hours After Marriage and Troilus and Cressida (all RSC); Othello; Julius Caesar Henry IV and The Tempest (all Donmar); Who Cares and Breath Boom (both Royal Court); Moon On a Rainbow Shawl and The Five Wives of Maurice Pinder (both National Theatre); The House That Will Not Stand (Tricycle); All the Little Things We Crushed (Almeida) and Mules (Young Vic).
Film work includes Boxing Day; Summerland; Fedz; Blitz; Forget Me Not and Dead Meat. Television work includes Shakespeare and Hathaway; The Bay; Eastenders; Jericho; The Dumping Ground; Coronation Street; Doctors; Missing; My Family; Shameless; Free Agents; Monday Monday; Casualty (series regular); Little Big Mouth; Always and Everyone; The Bill; A Touch of Frost; Wing and a Prayer; Jonathan Creek; Peak Practice; The Bill and The Knock.
JONATHAN MCGUINNESS TIM Theatre work includes Macbeth (Tobacco Factory, Bristol); Bodies; The Ritual Slaughter of Gorge Mastromas and Corner Boys (all Royal Court); Imogen (Shakespeare’s Globe); Four Minutes Twelve Seconds (Hampstead Downstairs/Trafalgar Studios); The Oresteia (Almeida); Love and Metamorphosis (both Lyric Hammersmith); Love’s Sacrifice; The Comedy of Errors; The Tempest and Twelfth Night (all RSC); Fatherland (ATC, Gate); 1984 (Manchester Royal Exchange); Orphans and Crazyhorse (both Paines Plough Theatre Company); Comfort Me with Apples (Hampstead Theatre); Once In a Lifetime; Playing With Fire and The U.N. Inspector (all National Theatre); Pyrenees (Paines Plough & Glasgow Tron Theatre Companies); Jeff Koons (ATC, Traverse); A Midsummer Night Dream; Rose Rage; Twelfth Night; The Comedy of Errors and Henry V (all Propeller Theatre Company - Watermill); Mojo and Richard III (both Sheffield Crucible); Two Weeks with the Queen (Leicester Haymarket) and The Champion of Paribanou (Scarborough). Film work includes Nice Guy. Television work includes Holby City; Wolf Hall; The Bletchley Circle; Silk; Casualty; Robin Hood; The Catherine Tate Show; A Touch of Frost; In Search of the Brontes; The Convicts and Coogan’s Run.
ASHNA RABHERU SOPHIE
Ashna trained at Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama. Theatre work includes Two Billion Beats (Orange Tree); The Living Newspaper Project (Royal Court); Santi & Naz (The Thelmas Theatre Company, VAULT Festival); [BLANK] (Donmar); Top Girls (National Theatre) and Trojan Horse (Lung Theatre Company, Leeds Playhouse). Television work includes Red Rose; All the Small Things; Pickle Jar; Sex Education; Year of the Rabbit; Bounty; Indian Summers and Is This Thing On? Radio work includes The System; Electric Decade; The Good Soldier; Bottled; Deacon; Moonlight on Water; Splott; Dangerous Visions; Perimeter and Where This Service Will Continue.
RAGEVAN VASAN SAM Theatre work includes little scratch (Hampstead Downstairs); Name, Place, Animal, Thing (Almeida); The Living Newspaper (Royal Court); I Wanna Be Yours (Paines Plough Theatre Company - UK tour/Bush - Offie Nomination for Lead Male in a Play); The Village (Theatre Royal, Stratford East); Love for Love and Queen Anne (both RSC); Hurling Rubble at the Sun and Hurling Rubble at the Moon (both Park Theatre). Film work includes Up on the Roof; Tim Burton’s Dumbo; Walk Like a Panther; Daphne and The Last Witness. Television work includes Save Me; The State; Fortitude and Cuffs.
NAOMI DAWSON DESIGNER Naomi trained at Wimbledon School of Art and Kunstacademie, Maastricht. Recent theatre work includes Wildefire and Belonging (both Hampstead Theatre); Fair Play (Bush); Romeo and Juliet and As You Like It (both Regent’s Park); Whole (Arcola/ UK tour); Twelfth Night (Guthrie Theater, US); Scenes with girls and The Woods (both Royal Court); Light Falls and Happy Days (both Royal Exchange, Manchester); The Convert and The Container (both Young Vic); The Duchess of Malfi; Doctor Faustus; The White Devil and The Roaring Girl (all RSC); The Tin Drum (Kneehigh/Liverpool Everyman); Gaslight and Care (both Watford Palace); The Winter’s Tale (Romateatern, Sweden); Beryl (West Yorkshire Playhouse/UK tour); Kasimir and Karoline and Fanny and Alexander (both Malmo Stadsteater, Sweden); Every One (Battersea Arts Centre); Weaklings (Warwick Arts/UK tour); Brave New World (Royal & Derngate, Northampton/UK tour); Hotel and Three More Sleepless Nights (both National Theatre). Opera work includes Madama Butterfly (Grimeborn/Arcola); The Lottery and The Fairy Queen (both Bury Court).
HOLLY ELLIS LIGHTING DESIGNER Instructions for a Teenage Armageddon (Southwark Playhouse); All the Conversations and Another Fucking Play About Race (both Arts Ed); Bobby and Amy (North Wall/ UK tour/Pleasance, Edinburgh); Tender Napalm (Kings Head Theatre); Tokyo Rose (Southwark Playhouse/UK tour); Dance (King’s Head Theatre); Louisa and Jo and Me (Golden Goose Theatre); The Boy with the Bee Jar (Hope Theatre); Errol’s Garden (Albany Deptford/UK tour); Hotter (Soho); A Fairytale Revolution (Streaming, Theatre503); West End Christmas (Streaming, Actors’ Church); Bin Juice and Everybody Cares, Everybody Understands (both Vault Festival); On McQuillan’s Hill (Co-design with Mike Robertson, Finborough); Something Awful
(Vault Festival); Call Me Fury (Hope Theatre); Madame Ovary and Sexy Lamp (both Pleasance, Edinburgh/UK tour); Cuttings (Hope Theatre); Half Me Half You (Tristan Bates); Ladybones (Vault Festival/Pleasance Edinburgh); Anomaly (Old Red Lion); Thomas (Vault Festival); Jeannie (Finborough); Sexy Laundry (Chiswick Playhouse) and War Plays Festival (Tristan Bates).
BELLA KEAR SOUND DESIGNER Bella Graduated LAMDA in July 2021 with a First-Class Honours Degree in Production and Technical Arts. She has a keen interest in non-traditional forms of theatre and has also worked as a Sound Editor, Vision Mixer and Camera Operator. Work as Sound Designer includes Darling (Hope Theatre); Flux (Theatre503); Julius Caesar/Cymbeline (Sainsbury Theatre, LAMDA) and Night on Boob Mountain (Frisky Arts Theatre Company, Albany). Associate/Assistant/2nd Sound Designer work includes Children of Eden and The Drowsy Chaperone (both Union Theatre); Blue/Orange (UK tour); A Place For We (Talawa Arts Theatre Company, Park Theatre); May Queen (Roundabout theatre, Coventry) and Sunlight is the Best Disinfectant (GBS Theatre, RADA).
LUCY MORRISON
HAMPSTEAD STAFF DIRECTORS
DEVELOPMENT
Zeinab Badawi Tania Black Susie Boyt Gillian Budd Irene Dorner (Chair) Adam Jones Paul Kanarek Marie-Michelle Kegne Sika Simon Parry-Wingfield Karen Paul Sue Prevezer
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PRODUCING
TECHNICAL
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ALEC NEWMAN
THE ANIMAL KINGDOM CONTAINS THEMES THAT SOME MAY FIND DIFFICULT OR UPSETTING. YOU DO NOT HAVE TO STRUGGLE WITH DIFFICULT FEELINGS ALONE. THE SERVICES BELOW CAN PROVIDE HELP AND SUPPORT IF YOU NEED IT.
Samaritans - A FREE 24/7 helpline. Samaritans works to make sure there’s always someone there for anyone who needs someone. www.samaritans.org | Call 116 123 | Email jo@samaritans.org SHOUT Crisis Text Line - A FREE 24/7 text messaging support service for anyone who needs support. Just text ‘SHOUT’ to the number below. www.giveusashout.org | Text 85258 Papyrus - Provides confidential support and advice to young people struggling with thoughts of suicide, and anyone worried about a young person through their helpline, HOPELINEUK. www.papyrus-uk.org | Call 0800 068 4141 | Text 07860 039967 | Email pat@papyrus-uk.org The Listening Place - TLP provides free, face-to-face, ongoing support, by appointment, for those who feel that life is no longer worth living. www.listeningplace.org.uk | Call 020 3906 7676
WKG Print are proud to support the programme for the hampstead downstairs production of
THE ANIMAL KINGDOM
WITHERBYS
ARE PROUD TO SUPPORT THE PROGRAMME FOR THE HAMPSTEAD DOWNSTAIRS’ PRODUCTION OF
THE TYLER SISTERS
Established in 1740, our business is steeped in history and boasts centuries of experience in delivering high quality print to some of the UKs most prestigious brands. Whatever your print requirement, one thing is guaranteed we will approach your project with our expert one-to-one personalised project management, we will then marry your output requirement with the latest print technology to deliver exceptional results.
WKG Print Unit 15 Thames Gateway Park, Chequers Lane, Dagenham, RM9 6FB 07734 048 470 garyf@wkgprint.co.uk wkgprint.co.uk
With print production in four sites across the UK in addition to access to a global network of print partners, you can rest assured we can print and deliver your pieces whenever and wherever you need.
WKG Print proud to be a part of