Lucy Kirkwood – Playwright Article
Studio Theatre Performance Guide
Whether delving into the underground world of sex-trafficking, exposing the politics in modern media, or tackling the complex layers of US-China relations, Lucy Kirkwood has proven time and again that she will incisively capture the world of her play inside and out through relentless research. “I love the feeling of learning,” Kirkwood shares, “I can feel these muscles getting stronger and stronger.” The intellectually tantalizing byproduct of Kirkwood’s passion for comprehensive precision has been lauded by Timeout London as “meticulously researched, dialogue-driven, snappily cut, big-issue plays.” Tackling big issues in the theatre can often skew dangerously toward the didactic or polemic, but The Times praised Kirkwood’s work as “theatre that provokes in the best way.” This, no doubt, is born of Kirkwood’s own philosophy toward her writing. “I don’t want to make something that tells you what I think about something,” she explains, “I just want to ask questions. Understanding of human psychology is what it is always about. I’m just trying to understand people better.” Growing up in Wanstead in east London, the oldest daughter of a City Analyst and a Sign-Language Instructor, she never thought about playwriting or politics before heading to university in Edinburgh. In 2005 Kirkwood wrote and starred in her first play, Grady Hot Potato, at the student run Bedlam Theatre in Edinburgh. It was selected for the National Student Drama Festival and garnered Kirkwood the PMA Award for Most Promising Playwright. It also caught the attention of esteemed literary agent Mel Kenyon who served on the panel for the award. Two years later, Kirkwood graduated from university with commissions from Bush Theatre and the National Studio Theatre. She considered continuing her training as an actor at RADA and had made it to the final round of auditions before Mel Kenyon called and encouraged her to devote her energies to playwriting full time. Taking Kenyon’s advice, Kirkwood’s first few years out of university went a long way toward establishing her as an up and coming writer with a strong voice worth following. Her plays Guns or Butter and Psychogeography were included in London’s Terror Festival in 2007 and 2009 respectively. The latter earned her the title of “Britain’s brightest young stage writer” from The Independent. Her Bush Theatre commission, the dystopian farce Tinderbox, debuted in 2008 to strong, if not glowing, reviews. The same year Kirkwood’s Hedda premiered at The Gate, a 21st century adaptation of Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler, noted by The Guardian for the “ingenious” update of having Hedda swallow the memory-stick on which Lovborg keeps his prized manuscript to destroy it. It was in collaboration with Clean Break, a theatre company founded by two female prisoners, in 2009 that Kirkwood would break into the national scene full force with it felt empty when the heart went at first but it is alright now, the tale of a young Croatian woman who comes to London in search of a better life but is sold by her cousin to a man who first becomes her lover and then later her pimp. She taught writing classes for ex-convicts and took workshops into prisons for two years with Clean Break while writing this piece on human trafficking. “There’s this language people use when talking about trafficking. It involves putting a woman on stage in her underwear, covering her with track marks, and being quite voyeuristic. It’s a form of grim tourism. I was more interested in how Dijana was like me, than not like me,” Kirkwood said. “I felt an acute responsibility to represent a woman rather than a statistic.” Kirkwood’s representation of Dijana’s journey was nominated for an Evening Standard Award for Best Newcomer and earned Lucy the John Whiting Award in 2010. Next up was the critically acclaimed NSFW at the Royal Court in 2012. The Guardian reported that “Kirkwood hits several nails squarely on the head” in NSFW, while Evening Standard praised it as “a savvy and deeply uncomfortable look at the world of modern media. It’s a timely, provocative response to the way women are presented in magazines – studded with moments of outrageous humour.” Kirkwood pulled no punches, back provoking in the best way yet again. Garnering rave reviews and adding to her impressive lists of awards before the age of 30, all the while Kirkwood was researching and shaping the epic play that would go on to transfer to the West End and claim the prestigious Olivier and Evening Standard Best New Play awards – Chimerica. Six long years of development along with a year of rewrites through production led to the draft of Chimerica on Studio’s stage. A dazzling three-hour concerto of over forty masterfully composed and interwoven scenes, Chimerica chronicles the life of Joe, a photojournalist, as he attempts to track down the subject of his most famous photograph “The Tank Man,” a single man squaring off against a line of tanks in Tiananmen Square. The play covers two decades in the history of two superpowers as it considers political change, personal responsibility, and the stories that exist beyond the margins of a frame. Variety lauded, “that the arguments about Chinese growth or American responsibilities are engaging rather than hectoring is down to the strength of the characterizations and the delightful wit with which Kirkwood expresses her ideas.” Chimerica continues to earn acclaim, winning Kirkwood the Berwin Lee Award and the Susan Smith Blackburn prize. A dramatic provocateur who cites Arthur Miller and Edward Albee as her literary heroes (with a nod to Caryl Churchill, The League of Gentlemen, and Roald Dahl as significant influences) still has a lengthy career ahead, should she choose, to pose us questions about how we see and interact with our world. For posing questions in a darkened theatre is her specialty. “It’s brilliant when the theatre makes you feel like you are active,” she says. “By asking the right questions you leave with something switched on that was off when you walked in – this is genuinely powerful.” Back to Writing Page