INTERVIEW: Saint Maud

Image: L-R Brogan Gilbert who plays Maud, Dani Arlington who plays Amanda & Neshla Caplan who plays Carol in Saint Maud, image by Von Fox Promotions

Live Theatre’s exciting new production of Saint Maud stands out from the usual spooky season fare. For one, it’s an adaptation of a horror film that became a phenomenon, presented live on stage. It also features a female-focused artist collaboration that includes Rose Glass (who wrote and directed the film), acclaimed Sunderland writer Jessica Andrews (who adapted the film into a stage text) and new music by Gazelle Twin, whose adventurous and unique sound make them the ideal match for this story. Not to forget the cast of female actors portraying the three central characters that lead us through the story.

For those who haven’t seen the film, which came out in 2020, director Jack McNamara describes it as “a unique chamber horror film” telling the story of a devout young nurse taking care of an ex-dancer in the last days of her life, with their relationship becoming involved, intense and obsessive. “What was so striking to me is that it really centres on an absolutely extraordinary young female performance, and it did a unique thing in the horror genre – which was to horrify us and to keep us on edge, but to do so in a very grounded way, so it looked like a social realist horror and felt like an artist’s vision.” Jack felt that the three-character focused story was “innately theatrical” and was excited by the potential for atmosphere and how it might work on stage.

The performance aims to immerse the audience with sound, lighting and staging that throw them off-kilter, Jack says: “I don’t want this to be an orthodox production in any way. The staging is all about how things affect the body, it’s a very physical production. The ultimate theme of the piece for me is the effect of life, society and illness on the body, and how we deal with that.”

I don’t want this to be an orthodox production in any way

Writer Jessica Andrews explores the “complexity of how bodies respond to their environment, to trauma, to desires”; while the collaboration with Gazelle Twin came about after Jack saw her show Black Dog, which he thought was “hugely theatrical, in a quiet odd way” and started a conversation thinking that the material might spark an interest, which subsequently led to her recording sounds on an old church organ, playing with electronic sounds, organ music and hymns to create music that will feature in the performance.

The North East is another focus of the production. “Jessica’s really pinged in the script the idea of the North East and the industrial landscape and the kind of ‘ghost’ of that landscape. So that’s influenced Elizabeth [Gazelle Twin] in thinking about how industrial beats and pulses can exist in an otherwise quite religious framework.”

A wraparound programme will also feature high-profile local authors like Eliza Clark, David Almond and Matt Wesolowski reading previously unheard ghost stories before the main production. There has been a lot of interest in this production on a wider level and Jack is excited to bring audiences to Live who may previously not have considered visiting the theatre. “It’s deeply rooted in the North East, it’s really about great performances and it’s full of crunchy themes and ideas.”

Saint Maud is at Live Theatre from Thursday 10^thOctober-Saturday 2^nd November.