Interview: Eirini Konstantinidou on Mara

MARA, a solo psychological thriller by Robin King and Eirini Konstantinidou, receives its world premiere at the Hen and Chickens Theatre this October. Performed by Angela Peters and directed by Konstantinidou, it follows a pregnant woman trapped in a basement on the day of a custody hearing for her daughter, her fear and memory beginning to blur as the clock runs down. Each performance is followed by a Q&A with writer-director Konstantinidou, so we caught up with her ahead of opening to find out more.

Red Bus: You’ve said this piece resists the political rhetoric around women’s roles and stays with the personal instead. Was that a deliberate reaction against how these subjects are usually handled on stage, or did it grow naturally out of the interviews you did with women in their late thirties and forties?
Eirini Konstantinidou: I don’t want to offer a manifesto on this subject, I want to let the audience choose for themselves how they feel about the character and her predicament. My aim is a more human, intimate perspective on a sensitive and, in some ways, taboo subject, without making it polemical. I believe people are more willing to engage with a subject like this when they’re invited to focus on the person rather than the issue. By staying personal, and by staging it as a thriller, I’m hoping audiences get a glimpse, and hopefully an understanding, of what the women I spoke to might have gone through, without being didactic. I also wanted to make a play that isn’t only geared towards women, but that engages a male audience equally.

Red Bus: Mara is your move from screen to stage after MNEMOPHRENIA. What did you find yourself having to unlearn, or relearn, moving from a camera’s eye to a live audience in a room?

Eirini Konstantinidou: I originally had in mind to include a screen as part of the play’s staging, showing close-ups and cutaways to give the audience a point-of-view perspective, so they could identify with the character more. However, I felt that might start to feel gimmicky and get in the way of the connection between audience and performer that only the theatre allows. I wanted to find a different way to create that intimate feeling without the screen, which coming from a film background, I was more used to relying on. So, I decided to lean heavily on the creative use of lighting and sound design to build the right mood and atmosphere and to support the performance. Also, by having a real audience, I now have the chance to work even more with the physicality of the actress and allow more theatrical blocking than I might have done in a film.

Red Bus: The setting is described as a visual metaphor for her state of mind, closing in as the clock runs down. How much of that claustrophobia is built through the space itself, and how much through lighting and sound?

Eirini Konstantinidou: The space and set design are kept intentionally minimal: this helps focus our attention like a laser beam on Angela. But I use lighting and sound design in a more cinematic and immersive way. In a way, they act as another character and create a more engaging experience for the audience. The space is closing in on the character visually and aurally. The audience is part of that experience. I want them to feel her entrapment more viscerally, and not just on an intellectual level. I believe the thriller genre allows me to do this much more effectively than a straight drama would.

Red Bus: With Angela carrying the whole hour alone, how did you work together to keep her psychologically “unreliable” without losing the audience’s grip on what’s actually happening to her?

Eirini Konstantinidou: Angela has been amazing throughout the whole process, and we’ve collaborated a lot on this. I always want to treat my actors as active creative partners: we build the “world” of each project together. The play gradually gives us clues and hints throughout as to what is happening. And where there are several elements that make the whole story feel detached from reality, it’s the performance itself that grounds us. Angela stays natural throughout and reacts to everything like a real human being would. There’s nothing melodramatic or histrionic in her performance. It’s the situation itself that is “unreliable,” and the audience is encouraged to put the pieces together along with her. She is on a soul-searching journey, and we’re here for the ride.

Red Bus: This is a solo piece built from conversations rather than a single life story. How did you decide which fears and experiences to fold into one character, and which to leave out?

Eirini Konstantinidou: All the conversations I’ve had with different women throughout the years have several things in common, to do with female identity and the societal expectations of women that are so ingrained in so many of us that we can’t separate them from our own personal views. Mara, as a character, is an amalgamation of many different women, and the main focus is motherhood. However, her experience is only one side of the story: she isn’t here to represent all women. Unfortunately, it’s hard to talk about Mara’s specific fears without spoilers. It’s a thriller and the audience is invited to discover what’s happening, something that is revealed at the end.

BOOKING DETAILS:

Dates: Friday 9 – Sunday 11 October
Time: 19:30, with post-show Q&A
Running time: Approx. 60 minutes (no interval)
Venue: Hen and Chickens Theatre, London

Each performance is followed by a post-show Q&A with writer/director Dr Eirini Konstantinido.

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