BECOMING MAVERICK – Written & Performed by Award Winner Heather Alexander is premiered at Brighton Fringe this coming weekend. Definitely not one to be missed! I grabbed the opportunity to chat to Heather Alexander in advance of her world premiere of this new work.
KK
When did you start devising your own work?
Heather
And I think I started probably, I know this sounds a bit silly, but as a as a child I absolutely loved making up plays and basically running around the garden talking to myself. So I guess then but in trying to get them produced and put on, probably in the last six years. I When I started writing I wrote 2 30 minute short plays. One was called Kiss Off and one was called Proxy and it seemed to be quite well received. Then I became a bit bolder and then I did a show called Annie Brassy. Then I plunged right into adapting Virginia Woolf’s A Room Of One’s Own and then rewriting and producing and acting in that for Edinburgh and Brighton Fringe. That was 2022 and that was well received so that gave me some confidence to keep going. Two years ago I wrote a purely imagined back story for Miss Havisham, who I think is right for a back story and as I advertise the show, it’s the story that Dickens left out because we don’t know that much about her. So yeah, so that was fun to imagine what drove her.
KK
And you’re quite right. I remember reading it and thinking and every time there’s a film made of it, you always wanted to know. But what? How did she get to this point? So. It was absolutely brilliant that you did it.
Heather
I mean, I love characters, these female characters, who you seem to appear wholly bad, malevolent and bitter. You don’t know anything about them other than they are pretty awful and I’m just curious as to what makes somebody malevolent, bitter, twisted, cruel, evil, or whatever words you want to put around that. Obviously, that led me to unresolved trauma. And I started to think about maybe these women had a back story that might be very, very interesting and obviously it’s from my imagination. It’s my take on what their back story might have been. But I wanted to treat their reimagined stories with empathy and try and understand why somebody might be driven to be grotesque or cruel or malevolent.
KK
So what is your inspiration for starting a project? Is there a particular influence that you always go to?
Heather
Well, for the show I’m premiering at Brighton Fringe next week this week, Becoming Maverick, it was a poem actually, a French poem that I heard. I don’t know how I stumbled across this French poem but it was so passionately read that it just inspired me. Even though I understand a little French but don’t understand it all just there’s the passion behind it that made me think, oh I want to do something with that voice, that woman, that passion. So that’s where this one started. And then I was drawn very much as many people are to the malevolent character of Mrs. Danvers from Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca, because she’s so mysterious and again, a malevolent presence which we don’t really know why. We can guess, or we can make up our own theory. So it was her presence that inspired me to think well, I’d like to write something about a woman who has lots of secrets we don’t really understand. And so that’s what inspired me to start writing Becoming Maverick along with, the poem.
KK
Well, Mrs Danvers is utterly terrifying, isn’t she? You have so many layers of terrifying as well.
Heather
It’s very interesting. Why is she so terrifying? That’s the question.
I really want it known that it’s just an inspiration. I’m not doing Rebecca. It’s an inspiration from Mrs. Danvers’ character, so I don’t want it said that I’m performing Rebecca. I’m definitely not doing that. It’s nothing to do with Rebecca. It’s just I’m inspired by Mrs. Danvers.
KK
What’s your process when you start work devising one of your shows?
Heather
I actually start writing because it’s the only way I know how to do it, so I don’t actually do a lot of planning or thinking ahead. I just start to write words and I hope that something comes from that and then obviously when a shape appears, then I discard a lot of the words and a lot of the ideas. But I literally have to just start writing, otherwise I would just sit there and not do anything. I’d just sit looking at the blank page. So it’s literally just go and see where we we’re taken. There’s a lot that just gets discarded, obviously, but I find it very satisfying to just write it and I’m not I’m trying not to edit it too much; let it happen. Then I see if there’s a shape or a story, or a thread, or an instinct or something that just drives it forward. Then I like the rhythm of it all. There is always a stage where I go “this is rubbish” and just throw it all away, but I think that’s probably most people who write.
KK
Are there any drawbacks to making your own projects?
Heather
Well, there’s a lot of responsibility. People always say to me, “does it make it easy to learn the lines?” I say it doesn’t make any difference whatsoever. It’s just as difficult to learn the lines whether I’ve written them or not. But drawbacks – I guess it’s just you’ve only got your own instincts to guide you, and obviously then you’re vulnerable to people’s opinions. When you’re acting in somebody else’s work, if somebody says “God, that was awful”, you could say, “yeah, well, I didn’t write it, I just acted in it:”. But obviously, when it’s your project, it makes you vulnerable to feeling sensitive about people’s comments and thoughts and all the rest of it.
KK
I remember doing a one woman show and many years back now and it was written for me, which was rather lovely and I was terrified for two weeks before I did it although I’d been acting for years. But I remember standing on stage and sort of in the back of my head. It was, you know I’m all on my own. There’s no one to help me. If anything, goes wrong and then a voice said “yes, but there’s no one to screw you up either”.
Heather
Yeah. Interesting. Yes, both of those things count. I mean there is no one to bail you out. When, if things go wrong, you’re on stage by yourself, there is no one to bail you out. And sometimes if a technical issue happens and you’ve just got to find a way out of it. You’ve just got to, that’s it. Yes. So there are pluses and minuses to everything.
KK
And I guess of course the one thing you do have to do if you’re. If, if it’s a solo piece of work, a solo project, you also have to do all the marketing yourself as well.
Heather
Yes I don’t like that bit at all. I’m producing and making sure you’ve got all the costumes. Everything you have to do really. You have to just be disciplined and make sure you’ve covered – everything basically.
KK
Finally, what advice would you give to artists who would like to make their own work but they’re nervous to do so?
Heather
I think obviously I’ve got to an age now. I wouldn’t have dared to do this in my 20s or 30s or probably 40s, but I’ve got to an age now where I think. “Well, I’m gonna do this because I want to do it. I love doing it, and if people don’t like it, okay, they don’t like it. that’s their prerogative but I’m still going to do it”. So I’d probably say to somebody, you have to just do it. In the end what are you waiting for? Just do it. There’s no point waiting. I mean, I wish I’d done this years and years ago, but I think you need confidence. You need experience and all sorts of things. You know, there’s all sorts of constraints and barriers that might stop people from taking that leap. And of course, we’re all frightened of being laughed at, mocked and ridiculed, or getting it wrong or being bad or scared. I mean, that’s everyone.
KK
But if you don’t do it. Well, you never know.
Heather
That’s exactly right, yes.
Becoming Maverick – A Tale of Twisted Karma.
Directed By Tina Pelini
Inspired by the character of Mrs Danvers from Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca – a wholly imagined creative origin story*
Dark family wounds force a woman to survive a savage legacy of injustice.
Powerful. Tense. Intriguing.
Becoming Maverick is a tale of a woman’s undaunting resilience to survive at all costs.
It is 1919. A child is found locked in a trunk on a cargo ship in Southampton. A dead woman clutches a letter beside it. A newborn infant is missing. The child with no name is sent to an orphanage asylum. Driven by shadowy memories, the young girl battles against outrageous injustice and societal iniquity. Embroiled with a family fractured by the corrupting decadence of dark secrets and wealth, she is driven to weather the storms of unimaginable consequences. Karma is a dish best served cold and this woman is glacial.
Becoming Maverick – the journey of a woman who learns to twist the knife of fate. But this isn’t the end. Her story is just beginning… with a secret that no-one can know.
Award Winning performer and writer (Best Female Actor) HEATHER ALEXANDER, takes us on a roller coaster journey of emotions with her latest show.
Dates and Times:
Saturday 3rd May at 4.30pm
Sunday 4th May at 4.30pm
Venue: The Actors, 4 Prince’s Street, Brighton BN2 1RD
Tickets:
https://www.brightonfringe.org/events/becoming-maverick/
