Maggie May E-Book

Frances Poet

• Herausgeber: Nick Hern Books
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Serie: NHB Modern Plays
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 95

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

'They say we're like swans. Ruddy beautiful graceful things on the surface of a lake but underneath we're paddling like mad.' Maggie and Gordon first met, dancing to Rod Stewart songs, in 1971. Now in their sixties, and still very much in love, they've been finishing each other's songs all their marriage. But now Maggie is feeling foggy and some days the songs are all she can remember. Her son and his new girlfriend are coming to dinner, and her best friend is asking questions. Frances Poet's play Maggie May is an extraordinary drama about an ordinary family who must balance the challenges of daily life whilst living with dementia. A heartfelt and inspiring story of hope, it was first produced in 2020 by Leeds Playhouse, Curve Theatre, Leicester, and Queen's Theatre Hornchurch, directed by Jemima Levick. It was a finalist for the 2020-21 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize.

Leseprobe

Frances Poet

MAGGIE MAY

NICK HERN BOOKS

London

www.nickhernbooks.co.uk

Contents

Original Production

How Maggie May came to life

Acknowledgements

Dedication

Characters

Maggie May

About the Author

Copyright and Performing Rights Information

Maggie May was created by Leeds Playhouse and Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch with support from the Curve. It was first performed at Queen’s Theatre, Hornchurch, on 13 March 2020. The cast was as follows:

MAGGIE

Eithne Browne

GORDON

John McArdle

JO

Maxine Finch

MICHAEL

Mark Holgate

CLAIRE

Shireen Farkhoy

Director

Jemima Levick

Set & Costume Designer

Francis O’Connor

Assistant Designer

Alex Green

Lighting Designer

Chris Davey

Composer & Sound Designer

Claire McKenzie

Assistant Director

Anna Marshall

Casting Director

Kay Magson CDG

Theatre & Dementia Advisor

Nicky Taylor

Movement Coach

Dr Joseph Mercier

Dialect Coach

Jamie Matthewman

Company Stage Manager

Julie Issott

Deputy Stage Manager

Robyn Hardisty

Assistant Stage Manager

Sandrine Enryd Carlsson

How Maggie May came to life – reflections on the process

Nicky Taylor, Rosa Peterson and Frances Poet

NICKY

Sharing stories is a powerful way to understand dementia, one of the major global health challenges of our times. In telling those stories, we risk presenting an unbalanced perspective by excluding the very people living with the condition.

Traditional stage, screen and media representations of dementia tend to portray a tragic narrative of loss and decline: presenting people with dementia as a burden, and stripping people of their agency at the point of diagnosis. There is no doubt that dementia brings tremendous challenges and losses as it progresses. Yet we must allow space for hope, particularly in the crucial early stages of adapting to a diagnosis, when people want to use their skills and feel purposeful. By failing to acknowledge the things that people with dementia can and do contribute, these tragic representations of dementia fuel ongoing stigma and stereotypes.

I established the Theatre and Dementia programme at Leeds Playhouse in 2010 to engage people with dementia creatively and collaboratively, harnessing their resilience and determination to forge a creative connection with the world. I have been constantly inspired by people living with dementia and their supporters who negotiate life with dementia, adapting to new challenges every day.

I’ve found that welcoming people with dementia as creative equals and involving them as decision-makers, advisors, curators and artists, helps them to thrive. It has also transformed the Playhouse’s collaborative approach and the stories we tell. Engaging deeply with individual lived experiences of dementia has enabled the co-creation of new models of practice including dementia-friendly performances and Every Third Minute – a festival of theatre, dementia and hope curated by people with dementia.

Maggie May was commissioned as part of Every Third Minute to highlight just how much people with dementia, like Maggie, have to offer. They remain a part of the daily lives of their families, fulfilling roles as partner, parent, friend and confidante. Inspiration came from the people attending dementia-friendly activities at Leeds Playhouse who demonstrate this with warmth, humour and solidarity. This story of ordinary people dealing with extraordinary challenges is rooted in Leeds, in the power of music and the strength gained through acceptance and hope.

Frances Poet’s incredible talent, empathy and dedication made her the perfect writer to realise this important project. She committed to engaging with people taking part in the Playhouse’s activities, listening sensitively and carefully to find the essence of Maggie in the real-life stories of people living with dementia and those supporting them. She has woven the spirit of these stories into the fabric of her beautiful script.

Rosa Peterson is one of the talented people who took on a new adventure as an Every Third Minute festival curator after a diagnosis of vascular dementia. She carries on, despite dementia, with a no-nonsense attitude, using coping strategies she’s developed, and supporting others. She’s a real-life Maggie May, at the heart of a busy life of family and friendships, a source of strength to everyone around her.

ROSA

Having dementia is like a rollercoaster. There are up days and there are down days. And it’s like that every day. It’s life. You’re coping with it every day. And you just have to carry on.

Every experience of dementia is different. Some of us can do a lot and some of us can’t do as much. Lots of people think you can’t do anything if you have dementia. I try and do as much as I can. People ask me why I’m always going out, and I say, ‘I’m going to my group because I need to go.’ I have to keep going, keep seeing people, otherwise I’d stop, and I wouldn’t start again. It’s that important. You’ve got to have hope.

Join a group. It will be hard the first time you go but you’ll meet other people who are going through what you’re going through. And you’ll laugh. You might cry a bit too, but mostly you’ll laugh. We laugh a lot. If I feel down, I come to a group, or I talk to a friend. I’ve always supported other people, and that hasn’t changed because I’ve got dementia. And I like supporting people, but sometimes people think you can do everything you used to do, so that can be hard.

Being involved with Maggie May has been brilliant. I’ve loved it. It’s about everyday life and we’re living it. I hope when people see it, it makes them more understanding and more patient.

I’ve found some coping strategies. Keep going, keep doing things, get out, see people who understand, look at the trees, look up at the sky and the stars. Find your way to keep going.

FRANCES

When I was first invited to talk to Nicky and the team at Leeds Playhouse about writing a play that told a positive story of life after diagnosis, for people living with dementia and their supporters, I was more than a little intimidated by the brief. My dear dad had dementia and there was not much that was positive about our experience as a family, supporting him through it. I didn’t know then to seek out groups where he could meet other people with the condition. I didn’t know it was possible to find creative, nurturing spaces where he could make significant contributions. So it was with trepidation that I accepted the commission to write Maggie May.

I need not have worried. From the moment Nicky introduced me to the extraordinary people living with dementia who were connecting with the Playhouse in various ways – funny, open, interesting and resilient people – I knew I could write the play. And so Maggie was born, a feisty, funny, no-nonsense Leeds woman who carried the spirit of all these people who had inspired me and been so generous in the way they shared their stories.

But Maggie May wasn’t written simply by meeting a group of people and incorporating their stories. Nicky set up a highly collaborative development process in which people living with dementia, and their supporters, had a significant dramaturgical input at every stage. Early meetings involved discussions about how colour could be a useful way to identify a character (hence Claire’s gold trainers), how narrative reminders could guide an audience member who might otherwise struggle to follow its thread and how music might support this, giving joyful breathing space to an audience having to work hard to hold on to the story. The first reading highlighted that ending the first half on a moment of jeopardy wasn’t going to be useful in this piece where the interval is a valid moment for audiences to leave, having still enjoyed their outing. Other incisive feedback has shaped the perspective and tone of the play. Maggie May has been a genuinely collaborative process from first to last, shaped by people with dementia for people with dementia.

And it’s for this reason, because of the care with which this play has been crafted for its specific audience, that I am particularly excited to watch the play in production. In the first reading, I was sitting behind a man living with dementia who was vocal in his enjoyment of the jokes and songs. It was suggested at the beginning that he might not manage to stay for the second half – but he did, and at the moment in which Maggie explains to her son that though she might not always remember his face or name, her heart will always know him, this audience member turned to look at his wife and gave her a nod to say, ‘That’s how I feel about you.’ It was a special moment. And the reason the play was written.

Acknowledgements

This play wouldn’t exist without Nicky Taylor, who instigated the project and supported it at every stage with the same sensitivity and care she brings to all her inspirational work with people living with dementia. Through Nicky, I have met some extraordinary people who showed me what it means to live well with dementia. Their stories and suggestions and those of their supporters run through the play. Thank you to Mick and Lyn Haith, Eugene Harris and Diana Smith-Harris, Wendy Mitchell, Rosa Peterson, Debbie Catley, Ray and Eileen Chadwick, Bob Fulcher, Pete Grogan, Jan Ellis, Peter and Nancy Jervis and Debbie Marshall.

For their input and support, thank you to Matt Applewhite, Andy Borman, James Brining, Natalie Davies, Alex Ferris, Cathy & Sean Forde, Nikolai Foster, Jacqui Honess-Martin, Tyrone Huggins, Arthur Hughes, Amy Leach, Morven McElroy, Eileen O’Brien, Elizabeth Poet, Peter Poet, Richard ‘Ipanema’ Poet, Daniel Poyser, Douglas Rintoul, Gilly Roche, Maggie De Ruyck, Janet Stirk, Roger Stirk (still very much treasured), Susan Twist, Sarah Liisa Wilkinson and Christopher Wright. For their talent and all round brilliance, thank you to Shireen Farkhoy, Maxine Finch, Mark Holgate, John McArdle, Anna Marshall and especially, Jemima Levick – I’d trust you with my life. And to Eithne Browne, who read Maggie so perfectly from the roughest draft onwards that I can’t imagine her being played by anybody else – thanks for bringing our Maggie to life.

F.P.

For my best friends since forever, Ellie and Beccy.

Characters

MAGGIE, sixty-seven

GORDON, sixty-six

MICHAEL, thirty-five

CLAIRE, late twenties

JO, sixties/seventies

Note on Play

Maggie May is designed to be watched by the broadest possible audience, raising awareness for an audience that aren’t directly affected by dementia, and offering a mirror for people living with dementia and their supporters alike. Attempts have been made to ensure the piece is fully dementia-friendly, including the integration of singing and elements of repetition to enable all audiences to follow and enjoy the narrative. Maggie’s assessments in bold are projected to act as a visual prompt through the scene. Scene headings may also be projected if useful.

This ebook was created before the end of rehearsals and so may differ slightly from the play as performed.

WAKE UP MAGGIE

Out of space and time.

MAGGIE. Eyes send message to brain. Chink of light through the curtains.

Morning.

Who am I today?

Sudden snort from the lump lying next to me. Me husband. He doesn’t snore. He snorts. These sudden panicked in-breaths through the nose that wake me from the deepest of sleeps. Not that I sleep much these days.