Falling Doors Theatre returns with first devised show
FALLING Doors, the Liverpool-based theatre company known for their dark, dystopian productions, bring their first original work to the stage this month, and hope 2020 is the year they can start touring their work further afield.
There’s a Dead Body in My Baby’s Sandpit has been created by the cast and crew and comes to the Hope Street Theatre from February 26 to 29.
It follows on from previously well-received productions including Jennifer Haley’s The Nether, Dennis Kelly’s Taking Care of Baby, and Stephen Smith’s Committed, disturbing dramas that examined the darker side of society.
Co-founder and director Sarah van Parys says she has always wanted to get the company in a position to make new work.
“I love companies like Kneehigh, and the way they will get into a room and create something – I love that this was not writing and developing something, but just waiting to see what happens,” she says.
“We came up with the title and went from there. We got the actors on board with our musical director and designer from the beginning, and having them be part of the process and coming up with ideas for the set and having that base to work on really helped to develop it.”
And what a title - as the show started to come together, There’s a Dead Body in My Baby’s Sandpit became a surreal examination of grief and loss, inspired by the unsettling twists of the likes of Black Mirror and The Truman Show. It tells the story of a seemingly perfect family moving to a seemingly perfect 1950s suburban neighbourhood - but who come to find something strange and macabre is going on.
The creative team reflected on their own real life experiences. “A lot of the cast have experienced big losses in recent years, and I don’t think it’s something that spoken about enough,” says Sarah.
As the play’s own publicity puts it, as a company Falling Doors is about “dystopian-themed theatre and telling the stories of unheard voices which fracture our view on reality and challenge audience perceptions of the world we live in”.
Despite being drawn to tales exploring often controversial themes of society’s ills, it is vital to Sarah and creative producer Nancy Msiska that there more than just a shock factor to the productions they choose.
“People associate Falling Doors with really dark material, but everything we’ve done has ultimately had a dark comedy to it,” Sarah says. “I don’t want our shows to be too hard to watch or for people to go away depressed, but for then to have experienced that range of emotions and that juxtaposition, of putting things in a different way. We want people to be talking to each other on the way out and trying to figure out what it is they’ve just seen.”
Sarah set up Falling Doors in 2014 after graduating from the YEP young directors course. She went on to participate in the Regional Theatre Young Directors Scheme, and recently worked as assistant director on last year’s Christmas show at the Playhouse, Miracle on 34th Street.
Although the city’s fringe scene is as vibrant as ever, there are still major struggles in bringing independent productions to life. With little by way of budget and day job commitments, it’s something that takes determination and savvy to pull off.
“It’s hard to find venues that accommodate self-funded shows, and you have to trust yourselves that you can get enough people in to cover tickets,” Sarah says.
“Early planning and getting the right team on board with plenty of time is the main factor – I haven’t slept much for the last few months, but it’s worth it! You have to absolutely love it, or you couldn’t commit to it.”
Ongoing support from YEP – from moral support and tech know-how to lending equipment – has been invaluable. “Without their support, I wouldn’t be doing theatre now,” says Sarah, who at this point is not tempted to move away from Liverpool to take the next step in her career.
“Me and Nancy are really passionate about regional theatre. Why should you only be able to make it if you’re in London?
“Things are improving – there’s more schemes and opportunities, but it’s still much harder living this much further out of London and not having access to national press and the industry. It feels like there’s still a massive block, and we’re just chipping away at that. But hopefully, more change will happen and it will be easier.“
The future is busy for Falling Doors as it hopes to revive and start to tour some past productions. Shows like Committed, twice staged as part of the Liverpool Irish Festival, attracted enough of a non-theatregoing audience to inspire the company to start thinking more about that wider appeal.
“For me, the next phase will be to start to help make theatre more accessible to those groups who can’t go to the theatre,” Sarah says. “ We’re trying to look at the bigger picture now - we want our work to have a longer life and be able to tour, and we’d like to do a lot more work in the community. Regional audiences deserve as much choice as people in London.”
For more on the company, visit their website or see their Facebook page.
