CW: Homophobic slurs that have been reclaimed, discussions of sexual violence.
Last week Will Winter sat down with Aliyah Knight, the writer and performer of Fruit Box Theatre’s new production SNAKEFACE. Below, they discuss how the show first came together, navigating rage and horror in a theatrical setting, and ideas of reclamation and rediscovery that come with the creative process.
Will: Thanks for joining us today Aliyah! Can you start us off with a little bit about SNAKEFACE?
Aliyah: SNAKEFACE is a reimagining of the myth of Medusa. There are lots of different versions of the mythology, but the one I was inspired by is the story in which Medusa is a beautiful maiden, and everyone loves her, and then she is sexually assaulted by Poseidon in the Temple of Athena. Athena finds out about this, and as a means of punishing Poseidon, curses Medusa to live her life as this monster with snake hair and eyes that turn people to stone.
I’ve interpreted it through a Black queer lens, with this version of Medusa existing as a Black queer working-class woman, and placed it in modern time between queer clubs and art studios. I’ve used that as a base to talk about modern rape culture and how it affects different people of different walks of life and levels of privilege.
W: That’s a lot of levels happening in the story. What inspired you to use Medusa as inspiration for this story?
A: I’ve always had a relationship with Greek mythology in general. Obviously with that story, it’s a myth that a lot of survivors have connected with and reclaimed, particularly over the last decade, and it’s something I hold close to me for those reasons. Going back a long time, I’ve had this connection with this idea of what the story means in terms of being othered, and existing as someone who was not considered conventionally attractive, and not considered what someone is ‘meant’ to be as a woman.
Y’know, I’m a Black genderqueer person. I grew up in a conservative small town where I immediately knew, as soon as I came into myself and into my body, that something was not fitting in. So, it really spoke to me for that reason as well. When the idea came to me for the show, I did more research about people interpreting the Gorgons as Black women, and connecting those different types of ostracisation. It spoke to me in lots of different ways.
W: How did you end up working with Fruit box on this production?
A: It was such a random process. I auditioned for one of their shows a little while ago. It wasn’t the right fit, but I ended up getting a coffee with Sean [Landis, creative director], and we had a chat about the works I was writing, and he really liked the idea of SNAKEFACE. This was in the early stages, I sent a script through and they got involved pretty quickly. They’ve been with it since it was literally a first draft, and through all of the developments. It’s been lots of fun.
W: When you were writing the show, did you imagine yourself as the performer for it?
A: I did, which isn’t always the case with things I write. I never write anything to perform it, it’s just a weird thing the events and characters and relationships in this story are vastly different from my own, but a lot of the emotional truths do connect to me.
I think it’s also a level of protectiveness over this character, who is so nuanced and so messy. I had been with her for such a long time and I understood all that. I guess I wanted the first person to bring her to the stage to get all that stickiness and gooeyness without taking it too far either way. An important thing about this play is that it’s about not having to be the perfect victim, or the perfect anything, and still getting to exist and mess up and try again. There are so many ways a character like this could escape empathy, so it was really important that it was treated with a lot of care.
W: The show has an underbelly of rage and rebellion with current systems. How do you approach platforming these feelings, especially in a theatrical context? I feel like it’s not a typical emotion that’s highlighted in that medium.
A: One of the big questions in the play is ‘who gets to be angry?’ And ‘who gets to be rageful?’ I think there are ways to depict these emotions that are palatable for theatre, and it was important to me that all of the emotions of this show were depicted in a way that felt truthful to me.There are certain art forms that are really accessible both to make and to bear witness to, but the reality is that theatre is not necessarily one of those.
There’s this sense of classiness and holding things together that comes with theatre, when, in reality, its roots are in accessibility and storytelling. I think it’s important to shed those layers and that pretence of it being this high art form that you have to engage in in a really sophisticated way, and let it be about the emotions and the authenticity, and let it be messy and dirty and visceral rather than having this kind of barrier between the people watching it and that world.
W: In a similar sense to that rage, how do you also approach platforming a genre like body horror in a theatrical sense?
A: Horror has always been my thing, and figuring out how to do it in a theatrical setting is a challenge. I’d say that horror lets you get into people’s skin more than any other genre does. What I like to do is talk about the real feelings and experiences, often that we don’t discuss in an open enough way, so experiences around identity and oppression and stuff like sexual assault, racism, those really tricky questions and experiences, but also experiences like coming of age and coming into identity, stuff that’s sticky in a much more personal way as well. I like taking those experiences and blowing them up as extreme as I can get them, and in my opinion horror is the best way to do that.
With this show it’s about finding a way to capture that visceral, crawling, invasive sense through language and through movement. I hope that it’s been successful. I’m so desensitised to horror now, so it’s fun watching people’s reactions to the language and the movement of the piece.
W: What would you say is the relationship between the show and Sydney as a location? And I guess more generally, how do you find being a creative in Sydney?
A: That’s such a fun question. When I started writing this, it had no references to a location, and I was really against setting it somewhere for a long time. I think within me there’s a sense of rootlessness that’s come from me immigrating from England to Australia and not finding the same level of community here. Eventually I decided to use that sense of rootlessness as a base for the story, and give the character my experience of feeling isolated in this big overwhelming city.
Sydney, for this character, and [also] being an artist in Sydney, it’s this strange dynamic where it’s really accepting of creatives and queer people compared to other places in the world, but when it comes to the intersection of being a Black queer artist it’s such a lonely experience. It is kind of representative of that void for this person who is surrounded by people constantly, and kind of needs to cling on to people to have a sense of identity because she doesn’t have anyone near her who she feels that she can relate to.
W: That’s a lot to carry in a production where you’re performing alone on the stage. I can’t imagine what that process has been like for you.
A: It’s been a lot of exploring. The thing about this piece is that, especially if you know the story of Medusa, you can walk in thinking it’s a play about one thing, that being the sexual assault, and that’s obviously a big thing. But, it’s also a much larger conversation about who we believe and who we see as a victim in society, especially somewhere like Sydney, which believes itself to be progressive but has a lot of underlying issues to deal with.
There’ve been a lot of very serious deep conversations to be had, but also, it’s a story about someone coming of age, so there’s a lot of awkwardness and humour and heart there as well. We see her go through genuine harrowing events, but we also see her having sex for the first time, and gay panicking, and figuring out how to scissor, and that’s also just as important.
W: I find it really interesting that in the content warnings for the show you’ve included “homophobic slurs that are reclaimed”. It’s an addendum I haven’t really seen before. I guess, what are your thoughts around the idea of “reclaimed” slurs, especially as someone performing with a sort of layer between your character and yourself?
A: People have lots of different views around this, especially in different communities, and I don’t think there’s any right or wrong views. I will always respect people’s approaches and how they feel. Within the queer community specifically, there has been a history of reclaiming slurs and reclaiming insults, and it’s one that I personally continue, and it essentially goes back to the conversation of existing as ‘the other’, existing outside of the binary and the standard and being okay with that.
As a person and an artist I’m not interested in colouring within the lines. For me, being able to get on stage and refer to myself as a dyke, which is the slur used within the show, is really powerful and important, and it’s so much of how I identify. There’s such a strength in identifying as this thing which people find scary and confronting and don’t know what to do with. I think it gives you this power over people.
I grew up in a conservative Christian environment, and as soon as the homophobic schoolgirls around me figured out that I was super cool and chill with being a lesbian, they were like “it’s not fun being mean to this person”. All of the things about me that anyone could take issue with, I’ve learned to really love, and stand tall in, so for me, the language is another part of that. I do think it’s different for different communities, like realistically all different slurs have different points of origin and weights, but for me with this specific language, it does have that power, and that swag as well.
W: I feel like I should end with something lighter, so I’m gonna ask: what has been your favourite part of developing the show so far?
A: Something I didn’t anticipate is that I would be featuring poetry and spoken word in this show, which is something that’s been part of my life and creative identity since I was very young. I haven’t performed poetry in a while. I’ve always written it, and I used to perform slam poetry in school, and there’s obviously such a consensus of cringe that I was like “spoken word is out, it’s so over”.
Now with the show I’ve gotten to get back into it and realise how genuinely beautiful and moving and strengthening that artform is. There’s so many dark themes in this show, and poetry is almost used as a balm to a lot of these conversations and things going on. Being able to use poetry as this healing thing has been super fun.
W: I love how the show has the list of things you’ve reclaimed as slurs, being able to be angry, and slam poetry. Thank you so much for joining me Aliyah, did you have any last thoughts you wanted to share?
A: Everyone involved in this show is so incredibly talented and brings so much to it. If you’re interested in anything I’m saying in this interview, know that all of these conversations are made a million times more interesting by everyone else’s work. I guess, I hope everyone who is reading this has a beautiful rest of their life.
SNAKEFACE will be performed at Belvoir 25a from the 8th to 27th of April.
