09.08.22
Introduce us to YOU. What’s your inventive background? What introduced you to playwriting?
Hello! My title is Eloise Snape. I’m 38 and the loves of my life are my husband Sam, my daughter Winnie, my cat Terrence and my Mum and Dad. I get pleasure from shitty actuality TV and have a wierd obsession with aeroplanes. Once of my favorite pastimes is taking a look at my Flight Radar app and checking the place planes are within the sky. Weirdly, my inventive background truly began at writing despite the fact that I’m solely type of beginning out now. I studied a Bachelor of Media in Writing at Macquarie University about 150 years in the past and truly spent a bit of my diploma writing in London/travelling round Europe not turning as much as class. At uni I discovered a bunch of drama society misfits who grew to become my mates for all times. One being Stephen Multari, who I went on to begin my indie theatre firm, MopHead, with. Once I realised I wasn’t actually turning as much as my lessons as a result of I used to be spending all my time making performs with the weirdos, I then determined to audition for drama faculties (after a few years working a correct job) and at 25 I made the choice to cease full time work and examine performing full time at Actors Centre Australia. There I met superb folks, and made extra mates for all times and labored with unbelievable lecturers and administrators. Since graduating in 2011, I’ve been fortunate sufficient to work as an actor for the final 10 years and have spent the vast majority of that point making impartial theatre with Stephen and MopHead. It was engaged on numerous performs as an actor and producer, like ‘4000 Miles’ and ‘The Humans’, that I used to be fortunate sufficient to be directed by Anthony Skuse and Anthea Williams who’ve turn out to be mentors for me and likewise occur to each be unbelievable dramaturgs. I at all times knew I wished to return again to writing, however I felt I by no means had something to write down about. Until 2020, when the world went manic and I fell pregnant.
What is your play about?
Pregnant fantasist, Hazel, is at Covid-style Rhyme Time: no singing, simply talking the lyrics of nursery rhymes. ‘Incy Wincy Spider’ is now fairly profound, ‘Twinkle Twinkle’ has darkish shades of nihilism, and ‘The Wheels on the Bus’ is a full-blown existential disaster. But at the least they’re distracting her from the tidal wave of change that’s about to crash over her life…
‘Pony’ is a bitingly trustworthy and hilarious coming of (center) age story, carried out by one actor, which explores our bodies and intercourse, the wild methods we keep away from speaking actually about pre and post-natal psychological well being and the way we navigate being on the precipice of motherhood when our mind continues to be on a dance ground grinding to the beats of Ginuwine’s basic anthem.
Why do you wish to inform this story on a stage at present?
I used to be not the earth mom I believed I might be. In a determined try to cling on to my pre-baby self, I attempted to show I might do all of it and current to the world as being utterly collectively. When my daughter was 2 weeks outdated I used to be again at work (a small job however nonetheless a job), attempting to not cry down the microphone from sheer exhaustion. I used to be shortly identified with post-natal anxiousness, which I used to be fortunate to get on prime of instantly because of the superb assist community round me, and whereas I knew an enormous a part of me was altering and studying in methods I by no means imagined, I additionally felt like I misplaced part of myself. I used to be typically overcome, bodily, by enormous waves of nostalgia. I got here to grasp, that despite the fact that the world round me was going by means of a as soon as in 100 yr disaster, and the business I work in and love was struggling terribly (and nonetheless is), that the adjustments that being pregnant and motherhood had delivered to my thoughts, physique and sense of self nonetheless felt overwhelmingly extra suffocating. Why couldn’t I be trustworthy about this? Why did I would like to cover what was actually occurring? It actually felt like a life or demise second – I used to be caught in that post-natal hormonal concern. I believe there’s a lot we nonetheless don’t perceive about ladies’s our bodies and well being.
Then I began to write down. Almost as a option to distract myself from it. And nonetheless faux I used to be ‘together’. A multi-tasking-super-human Mumma. I began to write down a personality, Hazel, who was doing precisely that – distracting herself from her pre-natal anxiousness in probably the most ridiculous of how.
Women of their late 30s, like Hazel, grew up beneath John Howard’s child bonus, advised to not depart it too late to have kids, however understanding statistically careers stagnate when ladies turn out to be moms. Also, many people get pleasure from our childless lives. We are anticipated to have all of it. An excellent profession, journey, enjoyable and kids. Society doesn’t truly assist this although, and girls bear the brunt of the hole between expectation and actuality.
I’m so excited to share a comedy at a time once we want a little bit of pleasure. I hope ‘Pony’ will encourage audiences to chortle at a few of our deepest fears and human experiences and provides everybody a way of hope. Hazel goes from hopeless to hopeful. In the identical manner that the questioning of my id and concern of change introduced up overwhelming emotions of nostalgia, I do know this play will invoke comparable emotions in an viewers. I believe the final couple of years have pushed us to essentially query who we’re on this world and in relation to our households, notably with the closing and opening of borders across the nation. More than ever whereas many people have been remoted, {our relationships} to the folks closest to us are particularly valuable and ‘Pony’ questions the significance of such connections and what occurs when these are misplaced. Now is an extremely essential time for storytelling for use as a instrument to deliver folks collectively, to have a look at how we’re a product of the generations earlier than us, to acknowledge the significance of connection as we’ve misplaced a lot of it, and to query our capability to be empathetic. I hope ‘Pony’ will join with everybody in their very own distinctive manner.
What was the method like penning this play?
My superb buddy and a fellow inventive, Frieda Lee, got here to me after I was about 35 weeks pregnant and mentioned, ‘when are you going to write your one woman show?’ ‘Never’ was my response as I gestured to my enlarged uterus. 2 weeks later Winnie was born and I’m going to be trustworthy – the primary yr of writing and growing ‘Pony’ is a blur to me.
I introduced my phrase spew to a couple early developments with Anthea Wiliams, Adrienne Patterson and Frieda, and because of their genius I went off felt with readability across the story I wished to write down, and the best way to construction it. But I used to be in wild state of sleep deprivation and confusion with a new child. And on this insanity I simply wrote and wrote. And the insanity infiltrated the story, in a optimistic manner. The play began to shift as I grew to become certain about what I wished to say. I then introduced drafts to Anthea over Zoom, throughout 2021 and we’d proceed to develop and I’d maintain writing madly. It was deeply satisfying, however tremendous difficult combating with fatigue and mind fog.
What has been inspiring you recently? Give us a life suggestion, ANY suggestion.
‘Ghosts’ by Dolly Alderton. ‘My Year of Rest and Relaxation’ by Ottessa Moshfegh. Jinkx Monsoon within the present season of ‘Drag Race’. ‘Below Deck Mediterranean’.