Interview with Sarah Tara Ray.

Ahead of the opening of Sarah Tara Ray’s new play Our Mathers’ Daughter, I caught up with Sarah to find out more about the story influences from behind the scenes and what audiences can expect.

Can you give the readers a synopsis of what the play is about?

The story follows a young artist on the verge of her first exhibition when she discovers she’s pregnant by her ex-boyfriend—just as she’s beginning a new queer relationship. Faced with a life-changing decision, she grapples with whether to keep the baby, a choice made even more complicated by her sister Emma, the family’s golden child, who holds strong views on abortion.
Meanwhile, her two closest friends, Kat and Billy, find themselves at odds when Kat announces her engagement, challenging their friendship and beliefs. As tensions rise, these women must navigate love, loyalty, and personal convictions.
Putting women center stage, Our Mothers’ Daughters explores both the harsh and the hilarious edges of the female experience.

How long ago did you start writing “Our Mothers’ Daughter”?

Around three years ago, not long after Rove. V Wade was overturned in America, which heavily influenced the piece, as reproductive rights are one of the central themes. During this time I was in my final year at Rose Bruford Drama School. The first draft of Our Mothers’ Daughters was a supplementary piece for my dissertation on female representation within the industry. Written to showcase an example of complex, funny and flawed female characters. Since then, the play has been reworked and rewritten many times. Often with adaptations happening in the rehearsal room, inspired by the wonderful cast, which has been an absolute pleasure.
Where did the inspiration come from?
As mentioned, I was inspired by the real-world events happening at the time, but my main source of inspiration for these characters was my mother and my closest female friends. There are many echoes of my own life within this piece, fragments of real conversations that I have had, or overheard, even the occasional direct quote. Snippets of reality that I was able to weave into this fictional story. Inspiration comes from a myriad of different places and shows up in such unexpected ways. However, I feel it is important to mention I had a very clear intention when I set out to write my first play. I wanted to write about women as I know them, to weave together a naturalistic exploration of female empowerment, relationships, sexuality, and abortion rights. To illustrate the value of female relationships in a world where so many young women grow up conditioned to view each other as competition.

To allow female actors to play complex characters who don’t conform to the industry’s stereotypical ‘woman’, who often exists about her male counterpart.
That is not to say that the men mentioned in this play are mentioned negatively. The majority are often spoken about in a positive light. They are just not the play’s main point of focus. Like The Donnelly Twins, in Brian Friel’s Translations, they are referred to frequently in the play and carry weight and consequences for the characters but are never shown on stage.

Have the rehearsals been an emotional roller coaster for anyone involved in the play?

This is the first time I’ve been in a rehearsal room where the team is exclusively women, and that in itself has been a new, beautiful and emotional experience. I care so passionately about this production, as does everybody involved. This has very much been a passion project. So with the fringe economy as it is, all of the team are balancing other projects, work, and life in general.

Part of the emotional roller-coaster comes from being so honoured to get to collaborate with this incredible team and share my work with the world, whilst navigating the immense vulnerability of putting something so close to my heart out there and simultaneously dealing with the stress of wanting the piece to be perfect with limited time. Which is, of course, impossible. It’s something the lead character faces in the play. Her greatest career opportunity comes at a time of personal hardship. The cast and director have been generous with each other to allow for a positive and supportive process.

Where would you like to take this play next?

I would love this play to have a future life, I’m not ready to say goodbye to these characters or this process. In many ways it feels as though we are only just getting started. There is still so much to explore, and with more time I feel we could get so much more out of this, so it would be wonderful to continue to grow and develop this piece to a place of completion before bidding it farewell. I’m in contact with Fringe Venues across London, some of whom are sending representatives to watch. We’ll keep our fingers crossed and time will tell!

What are you hoping the audience will leave the play thinking or feeling about?

As a writer there is only ever so much you can control and what the audience thinks or feels is, at the end of the day, ultimately, out of your hands. That being said, when I was writing it, I sometimes imagined teenage girls watching the play. Growing up, I felt like a lot of the relationships between women that I saw in media and fiction were centered around the female characters being horrible to each other or competitive and jealous.

I hope to showcase what women liking each other can look like and remind the audience about the significance of the relationships in their life that aren’t romantic ones. Maybe someone will feel pulled to call their mum, to tell a friend they are loved, to make time for someone that they don’t agree with and listen generously to a point of view they don’t hold.

I hope that some people feel a little more seen and a little less alone in their struggles. That some of the challenging topics that the play handles can begin to dismantle some of the taboos that surround elements of the female experience.

And of course, I hope people enjoy it! I hope that when they laugh at the characters they can also laugh at themselves and our shared humanity which is what I truly aim to capture.

Our Mothers’ Daughter will be performed at the Redbridge Drama Centre on Sun 2nd and Mon 3rd March. For more information, please visit the link below.