IMAGINARY NATURAL BEINGS by Mojola Akinyemi.

As the team prepare to take IMAGINARY NATURAL BEINGS to the stage this August at the Camden Fringe writer Mojola Akinyemi takes time to share her thoughts and hopes about the play.

I feel that plays are about authenticity. Writing a play is perhaps one of the most vulnerable things you can do as a writer. Your own words are quite literally regurgitated in the mouths of other people, again and again, until the play stops being performed. And then it loses its purpose (performance wise, at least).

Within a play, particularly this play, there are pockets of yourself that you bring to the text. Of course there is a great deal of separation, but there is always an element of yourself that is inextricably tied into the play.

This run of ‘imaginary natural beings’ is the second run we’ve had, after a week-long run at VAULT Festival earlier this year. Naturally, as everything does, the play has changed from its ﬁrst iteration. Lines have been cut and added in, scenes have been edited, and two of our actors have been recast. But the core of the play has remained the same.

After the ﬁrst performance, I had a friend tell me: “it was like the things you write in your diary, never thinking that other people are going through the same things, are feeling the same things”. I found that incredibly touching. Parts of the play are extremely visceral, others are joyful, some lie in the strange bittersweet in-between state. All of these combine to construct the play in its fullest form.

The process this time around has been incredible. Working with Xhuliana, as a director rather than as an assistant director, has allowed for new features to take shape. At this point, after half a year, I feel like she knows the play back to front, and you can see that from the way she approaches the work. Tara, our set designer, has stayed on as well, updating what she created for an end on stage to a thrust stage. And our producer, Maddy, has worked tirelessly to bring this to life once again. A dream team, truly.

The actors have also been absolutely wonderful. Adam, Gen, and Annie were all part of the initial run in January, Will and Tilly have joined the company for Camden Fringe. Things are diﬀerent now, but that is the beautiful part of theatre making. A new venue, a new cast, a new director, calls for something fresh.

As a writer, it’s always amazing to see the diﬀerent interpretations one can take with your work. Things you never even thought of initially have been drawn out of the text, making you sound cleverer than you actually are. It’s great.

When writing, it’s only natural to wonder what the audience will feel at certain points. There’s no way to guarantee that, though. There lines I saw as being quite sad can create a burst of laughter, or something that was meant to be sarcastic is felt with full authenticity. I feel that it’s more about creating an experience throughout, rather than focusing too deeply about whether this line or that line will make the audience feel a certain way.

If I was to describe the experience of watching ‘imaginary natural beings’, I would describe it as a journey. Through memory, through the mind, through emotion. I truly cannot wait for it to be performed again.