The critically-acclaimed physical theatre piece Sanitise, which looks at one woman in the intimate space of her bathroom, focuses on cleanliness, body image and things we hide from the everyday world, using mime, movement and dance. After a Brick nomination and Fringe First award it returns for a spring tour.
Lorna Irvine found out more about the piece from its star Melanie Jordan and director Caitlin Skinner, and enquired about life beyond the tour.
You won the prestigious Fringe First award last year for Sanitise-- congratulations. How has that impacted on your work?
Melanie Jordan: Thank you--we were delighted! It has certainly given our show more visibility to a wider audience, which is wonderful. Caitlin and I have been making this show for a while now, and have been through periods of uncertainty because it is so unusual; it has really given us a confidence boost. Being an artist is a hard job--you often put in a lot of hard work unpaid and face many difficulties in getting your work seen, so it feels really good to have your work recognised.
Caitlin Skinner: When creating the show we wanted to make something unusual, that was our own and that explored ideas that we felt were important, so to win the Fringe First meant a lot to us and we felt like all the risks we had taken were paying off. The award attracted a lot of interest for us during the Fringe too, so it helped us get noticed. We were always planning to tour the show afterwards and so the award really helped us in approaching venues and in attracting audiences as well.
Sanitise is a collaborative piece. Have your respective styles ever clashed during the process of creating it?
CS: We developed the show on and off for about two years, so we built our collaborative process gradually over that period as well. When we first started working together Mel came from more of a contemporary performance background and I was all about narrative. We were both really into what the other was doing but not very sure where to start. Luckily, our sense of humour brought us together and we soon figured out that Mel could create these striking images and I could use these as a vocabulary to compose the story and to draw out themes. I think we learned a lot from each other. By the time we went into full rehearsals I don’t think I really knew where my style started and Mel’s began.
MJ: We have definitely had to make some hard decisions when devising the show, but we have never clashed. Caitlin is very driven by creating a good story and I am very driven by visuals, so our styles have complemented and pushed each other to create something we are both proud of.
Why do you think that women's bodies are still held up to so much scrutiny in a way men's are not, even in this day and age?
MJ: Women's bodies are still used as a tool to sell things much more than men's are. If a woman does something well and is praised in the media, there is always a reference to the way she looks, whereas a man can just be praised for his skill. Women's brains are completely under-represented in positions of power in the UK in general. I could go on--inequality is everywhere, and it is infuriating. The Sun's Page 3 doesn't help, either. Down with Page 3!
CS: I think it’s because it’s just everywhere. People talk a lot about the media, which is of course a massively growing influence in our lives, but I think it is also in the way we talk to children, the way we tell stories, the way we buy and sell things and the way we understand our very identities. I remember when I was first switched on to feminist ideas in my early twenties--it was like going from being blind to being fully sighted. Suddenly it was all I could see everywhere I went. I think that’s why even in our enlightened times and when we intellectually understand that that’s not okay, we still adhere to that because its so ingrained in all aspects of our culture.
Have audience responses been different according to gender? Do you find there has been a marked contrast?
CS: Definitely there are some people with whom Sanitise really strikes a chord with and then there are others who don’t get as much from it, but actually I’m not sure it’s just been about a difference of gender. Because the process was so collaborative and we worked so closely with our whole team, including set, sound, lighting, AV and illustration, we had a lot of conversations about how the piece was communicating its themes and ideas and we really challenged ourselves. Because of this close collaboration, which included both women and men, we created something which I think has wider, more universal meaning than we ever intended. I’ve been pleased to find that the piece has something to say and ask about our attitudes to sex and identity in general. Having said that, I like to sit at the back and watch the audience during the show, and sometimes you can see women having a real moment of relating to the character and the men can only enjoy that with a bit of distance.
MJ: People react to the show in different ways, but I think the show is much more about how we are all a bit messed-up about sexual identity, rather than gender in particular. Of course, being a one-woman show, there are many parts that I notice women in the audience nodding understandingly at, but I have been pleasantly surprised by the same from men too. Ultimately, the show looks at what we do when we are in our most private of places, how we prepare ourselves for the outside world, and how we see ourselves when we look in the mirror--I think this solo exploration is something most people can relate to!
Melanie, you recently performed in the brilliant piece, White Rabbit Red Rabbit by Nassim Soleimanpour--how was that? (Must have been nerve-wracking!)
MJ: It was! To be handed a script on stage in front of the audience without any knowledge of where the words might take you was pretty nerve-wracking! However, I felt very much like the audience were on my side, they were on this unknown journey with me and none of us knew what was going to happen! This actually felt quite similar to performing Sanitise because the audience are such an important part of the show, my confidants in a very personal exploration, and so that gave me some comfort on stage. It is such a clever script that allows you to feel very comfortable and then suddenly delivers a punch, so it was quite a roller coaster to perform! I was quite emotional afterwards, and I would encourage everyone to see it.
Finally, what is next for both of you?
CS: I am currently directing The Strange Case of Jekyll and Hyde with Lung Ha Theatre Company which opens at the Traverse and Dundee Rep in March. It’s a kind of feminist adaptation of Jekyll and Hyde written by Morna Pearson and set in Victorian Edinburgh around the time the original book was written. Lung Ha Theatre Company has an ensemble of twenty performers, so it’s quite different from working with just Mel, but I am absolutely loving it! I’m also keeping up with my work as Artistic Director of Village Pub Theatre, which is a new writing theatre company based in a pub in Leith.
MJ: I would love to work with Caitlin again on another devised show. I have some ideas bubbling away for this but I'm not at a stage to give anything away now. I am going to be performing in another non-verbal physical theatre show playing Lady Macbeth in Silence later this year in Scotland and Cyprus. I'm also going to clown school in Paris this summer to continue my clown training, so maybe that will spark some more ideas, we'll see.
Sanitise tours the Scotland throughout February.
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