Lambeth Fringe kicks off in September and I have caught up with Molly Spain to tell me all about her show that’s performing there for 2025.
Name of Show and Venue.
Four Sisters, The Glitch.
What was the inspiration behind your show?
Four Sisters began as a purely theoretical task. What are you left with if you Bechdel-fy Chekhov’s Three Sisters? We removed all of the lines spoken by or about men, and were left with a piece about four women stuck in a place they don’t want to be, but with no plan to head anywhere else. Apply the same treatment to the rest of his plays, and the play started to emerge. Using my own childhood experience as a lonely
autistic girl, I added my text to fill in the gaps and create a surreal piece of theatre that
explores just how complicated it is to grow up in a female body.
How long has the production been in process?
It’s a brand new work. I started writing it in mid 2024, and it’s just now stepping into actual rehearsals.
Where are you planning on taking the play next?
Following our Lambeth Fringe run, we plan to bring the show to Barons Court for a longer run the next week, and we hope to take it on a small UK tour, as well as to the US in the next year or so.
What would you like audiences to take away from your show?
That stagnation is easy, and
growing is hard. That classical theatre is worth exploring and exploding. That women are mean and lovely and vast, and that the only thing we owe to each other is community. We hope that audiences will leave with a willingness to look at the world around them with a wider lens, and to realise that we are all just children stumbling around, trying our best.
What are you looking forward to most about performing your show?
I know for myself, I am most excited about getting to be a messy, angry, complicated person onstage. One who
flickers between maturity and adolescence. I’m excited to give Chekov’s heroines a chance to
play in the 21st century. And the glitter. We’re excited for the glitter.
Why did you choose your particular Fringe venue?
Four Sisters wasn’t written with a traditional theatre in mind, and so to get to play in a space that also hosts drag, poetry, music, comedy and more is very exciting. The industrial texture of the space combined with the soft, messy feeling of a classic Russian tea party means that the text and the characters get an
incredible playground to launch off of. We love The Glitch’s mission and vibe, and it’s very
exciting working in a space created by other like-minded individuals.
Which shows at the Fringe are you planning on watching?
One show I am particularly
excited to see is ‘Bog Body’. We performed at the same Scratch Night with No Such Theatre
Exists, and it’s exciting seeing another women-led show using unexpected conventions to
explore and tell a story.
Have you had any major hurdles to overcome to get this production onstage?
This cast is a group of early-career queer women, over half of whom are immigrants. Little Foxes Theatre Company has always been a very grassroots project, done for the love of the craft. Like the
characters in ‘Four Sisters’, all of us find ourselves in strange liminal artistic spaces. We all have a wealth of experience and knowledge behind us, but as young women, we often get
overlooked in the industry. Our cast is queer, Jewish, disabled, working class- not the traditional actors the world typically lets into closed circles. By creating a show where text and character shine, we’re hoping to take the show into various spaces and show audiences that women,
whether fictional or real, are worth investing in.
What other productions have you previously been involved in?
Little Foxes Theatre
Company has most recently done ‘As If: An As You Like It Adaptation’, playing a multi-venue London run. Other members of the company are working actors/directors/creatives often seen in
both the London Fringe scene and in the US.
https://lambethfringe.com/events/four-sisters-a-work-in-progress
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