I sat down with writer Jacob O’Connor to find out more about Act of God coming to the Riverside Studios this November.
Can you tell me a little about your show and what audiences can expect?
Act of God is a two-hander about Jack, a man from Wythenshawe serving time in prison. He’s put on a therapeutic poetry course that will decide whether he shows enough remorse to be considered for early parole. Each poem pulls him back into a memory, and those memories don’t fit together neatly.
Audiences can expect something tense and intimate. There’s a lot of dark humour, because that’s how people like Jack survive, but it’s building towards a reckoning. It’s about guilt, and about the stories we tell ourselves so we don’t have to face what we’ve done.
As a child, you were a 12-time World Kickboxing Champion (congratulations!), so how does this inspire you as a theatremaker?
Well there is definitely a safety in knowing you probably won’t get kicked in the face. However, fighting teaches you that preparation is everything, and that nerves only mean you care.
I competed for twenty years, and the ring and the stage have more in common than people think. You’re exposed, there’s nowhere to hide, and you have to stay present with the person in front of you. A fight is also a story. It has rhythm, shifts in power, and moments where everything turns. I think about scenes the same way.
There are also very clear influences from poetry in this work. To what extent would you agree that poetry can be a cathartic activity for people who are struggling to cope?
Oh MASSIVELY, with one caveat: catharsis only comes if you’re honest. I’ve performed at open mics around London for years, at nights like Spit, Jawdance and the Poetry Café. I’ve watched people say things into a microphone they’d never say over a pint.
Poetry gives you permission to be vulnerable, and form gives you something to hold on to while you do it. The play pushes on that idea, though. Jack is on a poetry course, but writing a poem and telling the truth aren’t the same thing. Words can heal you, but they can also be the most sophisticated way of hiding.
What has been the biggest challenge in bringing this production to life?
The main challenge was the writing itself. The structure, with poetry sessions intercut with fragmented memories, took many drafts to get right. If you’d have asked me this question before we started, I’d have said getting bums on seats, but the support from everyone around us has been amazing.
How does the design of your show (set, sound, or lighting) impact the presentation of your story?
We’ve staged it in the round, and that choice drives everything else. Jack is in prison and under assessment, so the audience surrounds him on all sides, the same way the system does. There’s no angle he can play to and no direction he can turn his back. Wherever he looks, someone is watching and judging him.
It also makes the River Room even more intimate. You’re close enough to catch every flicker of a lie. And because the audience can see one another across the stage, they become part of the scrutiny. The lighting and sound do the work of moving us between the clinical sessions and Jack’s memories, so the space itself never has to change.
The past simply rises up around him in the middle of the room.
If you could sum up the show in one word or phrase, what would it be and why?
“No hiding place.” Jack spends the whole play looking for somewhere to hide: in a poem, in a version of events, in a joke. The play takes those hiding places away from him one by one. By the end, the audience might find they’ve been hiding with him.
Act of God runs at the Riverside Studios, London, on 9 – 26 November. Tickets available at https://riversidestudios.co.uk/whats-on/uZW-act-of-god/
