Bookshelf Interview With Hannah Hauer-King
- Olivia Morelli
- Jun 4, 2018
- 9 min read
In May 2018, Olivia interviewed Hannah Hauer-King. Hannah discusses her decision to work in theatre, the reasons why she loves it so much, and the importance of fighting for equal representation in the arts. Her book choices vary from plays, poetry, and children’s literature - giving us five very interesting additions to our bookshelf!
Hannah runs the London based theatre company Damsel Productions alongside Kitty Wordsworth. The company brings together female artists, directors, designers and producers to breathe life into scripts written by women. Through the work they represent, they hope to make a difference to the world of theatre and the arts where women are still underrepresented.
OM: Could you start by telling us a little bit about yourself and life before Damsel Productions?
I’m half American, I was brought up in London, but I went to university in the States. I went to Georgetown to study International Politics and Theology. I always knew I was really excited by the arts, so I ended up getting involved with the university theatre, and eventually left with a Theatre and Theology major. I was planning to stay in DC to work in the arts but on a whim I applied for a job at Soho Theatre as a resident assistant director. I was lucky enough to get a sixth month placement, so came back over to the UK. I remember getting to London and thinking I knew all about theatre, before quickly realising how out of tune I was with it. When I was young I visited West End stages, then I soon discovered that there was this incredible, very influential fringe theatre scene that I had no idea about.
My placement culminated in this reading of a play I’d been given called Dry Land by an incredible writer called Ruby Rae Spiegal which ended up being picked up by Jermyn Street Theatre. They just said ‘Listen, we don’t know you, and obviously this is your first professional production in London, but we loved the reading, and we loved the play, so if you can raise the money, we’ll see you in November’. So that was amazing. Suddenly I realised that I was going to stay in London and progress with the production and form a company.
I found myself both directing and producing the piece, and I realised very quickly that I was not capable of doing that alone, so I got in touch with Kitty Wordsworth, who had done some work for Jermyn Street before. We set up a company together which we originally called WHK Productions (Wordsworth and Hauer-King), which is just the worst name ever! We then went about getting a team together. I found myself choosing a team of women, and particularly interesting in breathing life into a script focused around women with women. Creating this team of women, we realised how exciting that felt so to focus on that we renamed ourselves Damsel Productions, and decided that our mission statement, essentially, was to do work exclusively written by women, and about women, with female teams. It’s both incredible and surprising just how much that simple mission statement caught people’s attention. A lot more is happening for women in the arts at the moment and things are slowly getting better, I don’t know if we would capture people’s imagination in the same way we did if we set the company up now.
OM: We are living in such an important time in relation to gender, with people finally challenging gender inequality and fighting for equal opportunities and representation, especially in theatre. Recently people have called Caryl Churchill the most important living playwright, and theatres are employing more female artistic directors and chief executives - do you think that theatre is close to achieving gender parity, or is there is still a long way to go?
It would be foolish not to bear upon how wonderful the changes are. Now that people are talking about women in theatre more openly and considering the statistics, people are consciously trying to be more sensitive and aware, yet, despite this, insidious sexism still exists. I think what needs to change is becoming more complex. The West End is very male heavy. Even when theatres are trying to represent women more, the female written and directed shows are often in their smaller studio areas while their male written and directed shows remain on the main stages. It’s not the most powerful statement of diversity.
The other difficult thing is that when a woman achieves a position of power, it is seen as a huge contribution to women in the arts, when actually it needs to be happening so much more often than these rare cases of very successful women. I think things are beginning to change among our generation, women are giving each other the leg up. We’re seeing female writers being highlighted, but there are still huge waves that need to happen behind the scenes - for female designers, female production and stage managers, and so on. The stories you hear about how female stage managers are treated for example are just completely unacceptable. We have to look at it as an ongoing battle: things are definitely strengthened by how we’ve changed but there’s still a long way to go.
OM: According to the Guardian, Nicholas Hytner does not believe in imposing structures such as gender-blind casting or gender quotas on directors, but that a director’s casting decisions have to be based on their own instincts. He says: ‘I am very interested in gender-blind casting and often think it is excellent. But I can’t tell writers how they should write and directors how they should cast.’ Do you think this is a fair response?
I actually think gender-blind casting is problematic, but I also think his answer is problematic: it goes along with this idea of meritocracy and how we’re patronising women if we are choosing them over men. We need to ensure that the whole structure of the theatre isn’t just there to help men prosper but rather try to enable and encourage diversity. Our theatrical cannon is completely dominated by men, so of course there are going to be more men on stage. Now we need to say, “Ok, we’re in 2018, what are the stories that really need to be told?” If we really interrogate that, then we shouldn’t struggle so much with implementing diversity. The important stories for today are just not purely about white men or from men in the past. I think gender-blind casting is not the way forward because we simply can’t not see gender, it’s something that is so ingrained, and both women/gender non-binary artists reacting gainst gender should be acknowledged in the struggles they may have faced by not being male. People need to acknowledge the implications that accompany gender, like how you’ve had to live, your privileges and disadvantages. But, that being said, it’s a stepping-stone: I don’t think gender-blind casting is a bad thing if it’s getting more women into theatre and providing a platform for them.
OM: So the ideal, the end goal, is to be able to respect others for their own individuality whilst simultaneously viewing them as an equal?
In an ideal world I want Damsel Productions and gender-blind casting to become redundant and we would just see permeating diversity and promotion of minority/subjugated groups on stage. That’s just not happened yet and until that happens we’ll just keep going.
OM: A few years ago journalist Rupert Christiansen controversially wrote that ‘the only problem [with gender in theatre] is a numerical shortage of major roles in classical drama written specifically for females’, and that it is ‘not an ideology or prejudice or sexism, not even what shape of body you possess, but the capacity of the performer to make an audience believe that they are someone or something other than what they visibly are’. What are your views on this?
Our history is that of a patriarchy and the subjugation of women, so it’s natural that our classics have more male roles. Now there’s a choice that has to be made: we could take those classics, adapt and reimagine them to include female voices or we could look at the new writers, the new voices that are coming to the stage. There are different ways that men and women capture the gender experience, for better or for worse, but I just don’t think the solution is to just keep recycling these classics and putting women in them. It’s one way of coping with it but do we need to see Macbeth thirteen times this year on different stages? I think a more effective way is to say: Who is our Edward Albee or Lillian Helman right now? We have such an incredible amount of resources in terms of getting women into theatre. You hear things like, ‘It’s harder to reach out or access new female writers’ - and, yes, it is, that’s the point. It’s harder for me to find a female production manager or a female lighting designer but when I go on those searches I anticipate a bit of hard work and I don’t let that stop me from doing it.
OM: Can you tell us about your five choices of literature?
And Then You Act, Anne Bogart
I read a lot, but I must admit to you that I read a lot of plays and literature about theatre and theology, so that mainly forms the basis of my favourite literature. I love And Then You Act by Anne Bogart, who is an American theatrical practitioner. It’s about theatre, but it also talks about humanity, how the theatre and arts can help repair oneself as a human being and I believe in theatre as therapy to some degree. Bogart talks about theatre, not as a career or vocation, but as more of a way of living. She discusses the trope about the crazy theatre industry; that image of the theatre world is there for a reason, it can be an emotionally taxing and intense without a shadow of a doubt.
Bogart is fascinated by the human condition through her practice in theatre, and that I find absolutely fantastic. My mum is a clinical psychotherapist, so I’m fascinated by all of that. I think therapy is an incredible thing so, for me, Bogart’s narrative discipline is really exciting and I love her progression. I’m not a massively theoretical director, but I always have Bogart’s voice in my head when I think about the way that I approach plays. She just writes incredibly about the making of theatre: none of it is about perfectionism or success or money, but about how we do this because it makes us feel alive and connected to one another. I’m so connected right now to young female writers. There are so many of them who show absurd and incredible promise, and I feel lucky to be in rooms with them. I just think that’s amazing and it keeps me going when this is not an easy industry!
Sarah Kane: Complete Plays, Sarah Kane
There’s a Sarah Kane anthology I love which has Crave and 4.48 Psychosis in which I absolutely adore. I read it as I was just discovering theatre, and it set my heart on fire. It showed me something that I hadn’t realised theatre could be. It was deeply disturbing, and made me think about what it means when we ask people to pour their heart and soul in theatre, and the responsibilities that come with that. You read 4.48 Psychosis, and you read Crave and you read the stage directions, and you think to yourself, ‘I am literally seeing this person have a psychological breakdown on a page, how do I feel about that?’ but at the same time, you’re getting this incredible insight into the human condition.
Confessions of a Sinner, Saint Augustine
I love Confessions of a Sinner by Saint Augustine, which I found particularly interesting whilst doing my theology degree. I became very interested in the idea of the problem of evil when at Georgetown, and the basic question: how can there be an all-loving, all-seeing, all-powerful God and yet evil exists? The way the theologians and theists have tackled this, and still managed to find meaning, stability, and spirituality in their lives is incredible, and this book is one of many that copes with this problem, as well as the innate (and I would say wonderful) fallibility of human beings. I’m a Jewish Agnostic - I don’t know whether there is a God. I believe in something bigger than myself, but I don’t know what. Theism is fascinating, because it’s knowing, and I definitely don’t know. I find all those conversations happening around it very interesting.
Fat is a Feminist Issue, Susie Orbach
Susie Orbach is wonderful. Fat is a Feminist Issue is a really fantastic book. It talks about what patriarchy and sexism has done to, and for, the female body when society is so focused and obsessed with bodies, and the commodification of the female body. There is undeniably a double standard for men and women when it comes to bodies; it seems more socially acceptable for men to walk around topless, regardless of their shape or size, it’s far less common for women to feel able to inhabit their own body or display it if it doesn’t subscribe to what our society deems as ‘the perfect body’. There is perpetual fat-shaming, materialism, body fascism ingrained in culture, and it’s for the most part being used against women and impacting women. If you think about the amount spent and poured into the beauty industry, and what women are doing to modify themselves and to make themselves worthy of the male gaze, it’s both astonishing and depressing. It’s a brilliant book which takes on these issues.
A Wrinkle In Time, Madeleine L'Engle
There are novels like Anna Karenina and Jane Eyre which I remember pouring over and feeling a huge impact from them, but it’s weird when I think back on fiction, I think about fiction from my childhood. Novels such as A Wrinkle In Time, definitely make me feel nostalgic and reminisce about a time when I would allow myself to fully sit and pour myself into a story or fantasy. I didn’t realise at the time how much my reading informed my values and provoked a lot of emotion in me, and how much it linked to memories I have with my parents and late grandfather. I can just read three pages and I feel emotional.
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