The Hampstead Authors' Society
Zsuzsanna Ardó: Food, Sex,Talk -
In conversation with Greg Freeman about his play, Wake Up and Smell the Coffee.
Zsuzsanna Ardó: What triggered the writing of this play?
Greg Freeman: I thought I’d write a short lunchtime play set in a café, about three people meeting for lunch, which could then be performed in a café at lunchtime… I started to write idle chit chat and one of the characters, Harry, proclaimed that the meaning to life was food and sex. He pointed out that every other creature on the planet spent their day either finding food, avoiding being food or reproducing. I then decided to explore those themes.
ZA: How did then the idea for a play turn into the writing process itself?
GF: I started to explore the themes and links between food and sex. I particularly liked the idea of the female preying mantis that ate the head of her mate after mating. Which Harry glibly observes is his idea of a perfect date. Food and sex. I thought it would then be interesting to put Harry in a position of the male preying mantis. For that Harry had to be paralysed and at the mercy of a female who would make love to him and then eat him – this was to be a very dark theatrical scene, set in a thunderstorm, with a power cut so the audience weren’t sure whether it was a nightmare or actually happening. For this scene to work, Harry had to be paralysed so I gave him a sleeping disorder where it was possible he could wake up with sleep paralysis. I then gave him an ex-wife who was also an ex-cannibal. I wanted the audience to be uncertain as to whether it was a dream or not. Ironically, having gone to such lengths to set this scene up, for all sorts of different reasons, it was decided in the rehearsal room to play the scene as a psychedelic dream. It was re-written and though it is enormous fun and entertaining… it’s not quite the scene I put on the page!
ZA: How long did it take from the idea to the final product – the premier?
GF: Three and half years –on and off. And at least four drafts
ZA: Could you tell us about the nitty-gritty details of the writing process? How do you structure your days?
GF: Being a single parent my days have generally been structured around school and children. But my youngest is doing his GCSE’s so that will soon change. I don’t write every day, but when I do start writing I am totally absorbed. The children have over the years learned to feed themselves so I just make sure there’s food in fridge before I sit down to write. I write organically, I never force dialogue. If I get writers block, then I know it is because I only have half a story or maybe a characters attitude is wrong. Too often I’ve thought I had a good story when in reality I had half of a good story. Give the story or scene the right ingredients and the dialogue will always write itself.
ZA: In what ways do you see the play as similar to and different from TV sitcoms?
GF: As I see it, sitcoms and comedy theatre are branches on the same tree. In the early days of television before shows were recorded, the audience watched filmed playlets. The BBC broadcasted comedy pilots under the umbrella title of Comedy Playhouse. From which Steptoe and Son was spawned. I think there is a school of thought that equates sitcom with vacuous. MASH was a sitcom. Yet if the original book had been developed into a stage play rather than a film – (then sitcom) maybe it would be regarded as a classic piece of comedy theatre, like One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest. Each episode of Fawlty Towers is like a short hotel farce. American sitcoms acknowledge their theatrical roots. They always have a two-act structure and their sets are always like theatre sets. Frasier’s living room is a theatre set. No hallway, the front door opens straight into the fabulous lounge overlooking Seattle. You could probably stage Barefoot in the Park in his living room. To get back to your question in what way is my play like a sitcom – I think it’s the rhythm of the dialogue that makes it feel more like a sitcom. I wanted the dialogue light, and the exposition of themes fun.
ZA: To what degree do you as the author like to participate in the casting and staging process?
GF: I like to participate in the casting but I usually allow the director a free hand to interpret the text as they see it.
ZA: You seem to see food, sex and talk as survival strategies. Could you elaborate on their respective connections as you see them in and outside of this play?
GF: Food and sex are basic needs; it is the acquiring of them that requires a strategy. To acquire sex, Harry takes a woman out dinner in the play. In a third world country to acquire food a woman may sell her body for sex. Harry believes women are only attracted to him by his money and money buys food. And to acquire money requires strategies. To sell his pies, Harry has to make them “attractive”. To get a job, to get money, you have to make yourself “attractive” to the employer. An “attractive” CV helps. To make his product more “attractive”, a businessman may wine and dine his client. Or he may just sell it cheaper. To survive in this world, the deal has to be “attractive”. And to get a sexual partner, it helps to make the effort to be “attractive’. Harry would argue that “attractive” is synonymous with “sexy” – and I don’t think he’s alone in thinking that.
ZA: The four singles end up with partners. But they are clearly destined for unhappiness, pain and more pain as they suit each other about as much as winter frost and a bikini. The relationships are of the devouring rather than the nourishing kind.
GF: I deliberately wanted all four characters to be predators. Harry and Hanny are both unashamed predators. Dominic is stalking his ex-wife but ends up as a prey. Georgina is a quiet predator. She is hunting Harry, she even stands over his sleeping body and shouts “He’s mine”. I originally had her hitting Harry over the head, to underpin the sense she was standing over a “kill”. Though Harry and Georgina may appear to get together, you are absolutely right they are not destined for happiness.
ZA: The play ends with a kiss, undercut by a string of obsessive goodbyes. Are the psychological animals called humans bound to make visceral choices and thus be unhappy?
GF: The ending is not quite how I envisaged it. Following the theme of the preying mantis, I created a situation whereby Harry had a one night stand with Georgina and lost his head (metaphorically speaking) because he fell in love with her. The confused Harry walks around at the end not knowing what he wants – Georgina hands him back his sweatshirt revealing a sexy top. Georgina exits slowly saying goodbye, Harry follows her saying goodbye. So I saw it as Harry lured off by sex. Yes, he has fallen for her, but it is the “sexual attractiveness” of her that motivates him to follow. Not a romantic ending. I think the gut feeling in the rehearsal room was to go for a more romantic ending, with them on the sofa. But romantic or unromantic, the sense is the same. These two people may have fallen in love but a part of them both know they really should part company. Fast.
ZA: Narcoleptic characters are not uncommon in comedies. In this play though it seems to be more than just a source of slapstick comedy – you seem to use it as a dramatic device.
GF: It is a dramatic device in many ways. Apart from using it in the dream sequences, it was useful tool to make Harry vulnerable. The story demands Harry “the alpha male” be vulnerable in some way.
ZA: Characters with cannibalistic experience are uncommon although cannibalism itself is documented throughout history, until very recently. You take the food taboo idea, and what it says about relationships, from vegetarianism to the other end of the spectrum.
GF: The carnivores, Harry and Handy both respect meat. Hanny, when she talks about eating a shaman, does so with reverence. You almost wish you had been invited to his funeral. I could have created a scenario whereby she had been in a plane crash and eaten someone for survival. But having her eat someone out of respect, somehow reinforced Harry’s argument that he respects the animals he puts in his pies. Respect is a theme. Harry does not respect boundaries, and so find himself at odds with Dominic. As friends Harry and Georgina can respect each other’s differences, but as lovers they both start to try and control the other. However you apply it – in life, relationships or society, once you lose respect, inevitably what follows isn’t very pleasant.
ZA: The characters suggest a direct correlation between the type of food they eat, taboos they respect, their temperament and metaphysical take on life. The vegetarian characters are tame and subdued, and relatively inhibited, compared with the carnivorous ones. The former – both of them –give into the latter. Is this coincidental, merely a dramatic device or part of the message?
GF: Probably all three! There is an exchange of dialogue when Georgina says “safety in numbers” and Dominic replies “What? Like three gazelles.” I think once I wrote that line, I started to write Georgina and Dominic more like gazelles. We are always being told that “we are what we eat” – perhaps there is some truth in that.
ZA: You seem to suggest that the veneer of civilization, packed with taboos, is as thin as the paint on the pictures in the café on stage. It is a mere gloss on the human essence which is savagely animalistic. In dreams and sudden insights, the depth of the vibrant, animalistic jungle reveals itself from underneath the pleasing, framed and thus contained pieces of art on the wall.
GF: I’m pleased that comes across. Certainly Norman Coates wonderful set reflects that. We are genetically programmed to be survivors but we have to be educated to be civilised. I think under the surface we are more animalistic than we care to acknowledge. I may like to think that I would rather die of hunger, than take a little lamb from a field, slaughter it, skin it and then roast it over an open fire. But I know if I truly was starving… Sadly, I suspect that when it comes to survival, when the chips are really down, the first casualty has to be principles.
ZA: The title of the play is taken from the title of a novel by Esther (Eppie) Pauline Friedman Lederer, known as Ann Landers. “Wake up and smell the coffee” has become a set phrase, meaning ‘Time to face reality’. What facet of reality are you urging the audience to face?
GF: I’d like to pretend that I am urging the audience to face this or that… But I only recently changed the title to Wake Up and Smell the Coffee from Food and Sex. My decision to change it was heavily influenced by a review in The Stage I got for a play of mine that was on at the Edinburgh Fringe last year. The play was called Spite the Face. The review started “Be warned, the dreadful title and poster give no indication of the delightful 55 minutes they herald…” Food and Sex said exactly what was in “the can”, but would it put off the very audience I wanted to attract. I really didn’t want to be overtly cynical and choose an overtly commercial title but… It’s a jungle. I wanted the play to be “attractive” at the box office... survival you see… so I had to Wake Up and Smell the Coffee and change the name.
© Zsuzsanna Ardó and HASNotes
