Stella Duffy is directing Expectations, a new play by Emma Deakin.
Says Stella: “I know lots of you reading this will have miscarried. I know this because the statistics say so. I know we also hardly ever talk about it – what it does to us personally, what it does to our dreams, what it does to our hopes for the future.
“Emma and I both have our own experiences of miscarriage, and in making the play have tried really hard not to make yet another issue play. Not another play about a hard thing, in a black box, with some people shouting at each other. This has been one of our main drives, to create a show with humour and wildness and interest and characters and engagement and an issue at its heart, a play that starts from loss, yes, but is about more than loss, about how we make the choices we do, what drives us, and what do we do when we feel choice is taken away from us.
“It’s been good and hard working to living up to our aim, and I hope we’ll have achieved what we set out to do — or, at least, we’ll achieve it as the show progresses : making something bigger than the issue that caused the work to be created in the first place. (Which is a nice analogy for life/miscarriage too . . .)”
The play Stella will attend on the first and last nights, for the signed performance on November 13 — and maybe a few others. And, she says, “It would be great to see you there.”
Expectations is on at the Pleasance Theatre, Islington, London, UK on November 5 to 24.
